Re: [PEN-L] Is Krugman right here?

[Eugene Coyle]

Michael Perelman wrote: The date on my book keeps slipping. It looks like the date is now the middle of next month. Gene's remark about Galbraith's agricultural background might sound flippant, but there is a strong streak of farmer populism that is highly critical of markets. I certainly didn't intend a flippant remark about Galbraith.  For people beginning the study of economics, certain groundings in the world help in escaping the black hole of neo-classical micro.  Farming seems to me to be one such grounding.  In the Sixties, an anti-Vietnam war perspective might have been another.  There surely are others.  But someone just going into economics without such a grounding is very susceptible to becoming a professor of economics. Gene Coyle On Mon, May 08, 2006 at 12:32:39PM -0700, Eugene Coyle wrote: I'm not too clear anymore what "increasing returns to scale" is (Michael's book on railroads has yet to turn up at my bookstore). I think the concept of overhead costs is a clearer way to thing about what drives monopoly and why it is beneficial, and the necessity of price fixing. And why USA farming gets $25 billion a year in federal money to cover overhead costs. Maybe it was easy for Galbraith to be heterodox because he was a farmer. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu