Re: Destruction and keynesianism
Well worth reading, thanks. One should read the NYT before accusing Keynesians to have become economists! I would still think that we heard the Krugmans less that we could have expecetd. One interesting thing in Krugman's letter is his model of government. He says something like, It's too bad, but politicians may not be as altruist as I would want them to be (and as I am myself). At 14:50 16/09/01, you wrote: on 9/16/01 12:27 PM, Pierre Lemieux at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks, but where? http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/14/opinion/14KRUG.html At 13:04 16/09/01, you wrote: Pierre Lemieux wrote: Following Tuesday's tragic events, isn't it surprising that we don't hear much the Keynesian argument that repairs and reconstruction (plus, presumably, military purchases) will boost aggregate demand and pull the economy out of the recession it was drifting into? We even did not have to dig holes and refill them to boost aggregate demand as Keynes would have suggested, for some barbarians did the first part for us. Paul Krugman already has said this! -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] 'When a man thinks he's good - *that's* when he's rotten. Pride is the worst of all sins, no matter what's he's done.' 'But if a man knows that what he's done is good?' 'Then he ought to apologize for it.' 'To whom?' 'To those who haven't done it.' -- Ayn Rand, *Atlas Shrugged* PIERRE LEMIEUX C.P. 725, Tour de la Bourse, Montréal, Canada H4Z 1J9 http://www.pierrelemieux.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Backup: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) PGP Key: 0xBDFFCD16 Fingerprint: CF3E 4A3F 57AB 8AB2 88FB A1D8 C83D 2E15 BDFF CD16 PIERRE LEMIEUX C.P. 725, Tour de la Bourse, Montréal, Canada H4Z 1J9 http://www.pierrelemieux.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Backup: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) PGP Key: 0xBDFFCD16 Fingerprint: CF3E 4A3F 57AB 8AB2 88FB A1D8 C83D 2E15 BDFF CD16
Dismal science
According to a Harris poll (http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=356), 65% of American shareholders think that stocks will go down when the market opens on Monday, but only 1% intend to sell -- presumably out of patriotism. The fact that markets are down elsewhere in the world also points to a bearish Monday. Now, if I am a patriot and believe that stock prices will go down but that nobody else will sell, I will reason that I am better off selling. Then, I don't contribute to the crash (for there won't be one) and don't lose my money either. (Moreover, not all stock holders are patriots, nor Americans for that matter.) Consequently, one would expect a drop on American exchanges on Monday (5%-6%?). Any other ideas? PIERRE LEMIEUX Visiting Professor , Université du Québec à Hull Co-director of the Groupe de Recherche Économie et Liberté (GREL) Research Fellow, Independent Institute http://www.pierrelemieux.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Backup: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Montréal address: C.P. 725, Tour de la Bourse, Montréal, Canada H4Z 1J9 Fax: 1(819)585-4423 PGP Key: 0xBDFFCD16 Fingerprint: CF3E 4A3F 57AB 8AB2 88FB A1D8 C83D 2E15 BDFF CD16
Re: More Guns, Less Crime?
Culture is a key variable here. Given the culture, the freedom to defend oneself may well be correlated with lower crime rates. Vermont in the US has the most liberty in self-defense and low crime rates relative to other states. Indeed, global, country-wide statistics don't tell a reliable story (especially, of course, if Switzerland and Israel are excluded). One interesting piece of evidence is Brandon S. Centerwall, Homicide and the Prevalence of Handguns: Canada and the United States, 1976 to 1980, American Journal of Epidemiology, 134 (1991): 1245-1260. Centerwall shows that, if we compare ADJACENT American States and Canadian provinces (to control for the cultural factor), it is generally the case that there is more guns and less crime on the American side of the border. Another piece of evidence is indeed Canada, where the same gun legislation (which is federal) applies to all provinces, while violent crime rates range from the low European or Vermont type, to quite high rates. Finally, consider indeed Canada where there were relatively few controls before 1977 -- except on handguns, which had to be registered, but for which a carry permit was not difficult to obtain. Fully automatic weapons and sawed-off shotguns were legal. For some reason, guns did not kill then. What one has to remember is that gun control increases the total price of guns, and carrying guns, more for the honest citizen than for the criminal. P.L. PIERRE LEMIEUX Visiting Professor , Université du Québec à Hull Director of the Groupe de Recherche Économie et Liberté (GREL) Research Fellow, Independent Institute http://www.pierrelemieux.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Backup: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Montréal address: C.P. 725, Tour de la Bourse, Montréal, Canada H4Z 1J9 Fax: 1(819)585-4423 PGP Key: 0xBDFFCD16 Fingerprint: CF3E 4A3F 57AB 8AB2 88FB A1D8 C83D 2E15 BDFF CD16 ** L'homme vivant sous la servitude des lois prend sans s'en douter une âme d'esclave. The man who lives under the servitude of laws takes, without suspecting it, the soul of a slave. (Georges Ripert, Le Déclin du Droit, Paris, Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1949, p. 94) **
Assassination terminology
If I am not mistaken, an homicide justified by moral reasons is called execution, not assassination. P.L. PIERRE LEMIEUX Visiting Professor , Université du Québec à Hull Director of the Groupe de Recherche Économie et Liberté (GREL) Research Fellow, Independent Institute http://www.pierrelemieux.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Backup: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Montréal address: C.P. 725, Tour de la Bourse, Montréal, Canada H4Z 1J9 Fax: 1(819)585-4423 PGP Key: 0xBDFFCD16 Fingerprint: CF3E 4A3F 57AB 8AB2 88FB A1D8 C83D 2E15 BDFF CD16 ** L'homme vivant sous la servitude des lois prend sans s'en douter une âme d'esclave. The man who lives under the servitude of laws takes, without suspecting it, the soul of a slave. (Georges Ripert, Le Déclin du Droit, Paris, Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1949, p. 94) **
Re: Economics of Love
I am not sure one can talk of the demand for love more than about a demand for happiness. As Rothbard said, people make choices at the margin, they demand a certain type of love relationship in a certain period of time. Formulated this way, it becomes clear that substitution phenomena occur in love. People who are not perfect homosexuals or heterosexuals on the Kinsey scale will substitute for their more preferred alternatives it the cost of the latter is too high. If the gorgeous citizen's daughter next door is not approachable, the classical 30-year-old male Greek will substitute the closest alternative, i.e., a teenage boy. Of course, everybody's elasticity of substitution will be different, and will be zero in some cases: not anybody will substitute a goat in the desert. On all this, see the remarkable book of Richard Posner, Sex and Reason. It is full of substitutable love objects. The demand for the most gorgious kind of woman has a negative slope. Now, even if we can conceive of a demand curve for love in general, it probably has a negative slope too for any consumer, and certainly for the market as a whole. Other plesaures are substitutable for love: it depends on the price. Monks are only one instance of this. P.L. At 20:12 00-09-28, you wrote: In a recent discussion I had (off-line), someone described the demand for heroin (by heroin addicts) as perfectly inelastic. I responded that that was a bit off; if demand for heroin were perfectly inelastic, I would charge $1 billion a hit, and inevitably find a buyer. I offered, as a possible alternative for a good with perfectly inelastic demand, love. Then I thought - is the demand for love *perfectly inelastic* (meaning, people desire one quantity, but at any price), or *perfectly elastic* (meaning, people desire any quantity, but demand will be infinite below a given price), or something else entirely? Any ideas? PIERRE LEMIEUX Visiting Professor , Université du Québec à Hull Director of the Groupe de Recherche Économie et Liberté (GREL) Research Fellow, Independent Institute http://www.pierrelemieux.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Backup: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Montréal address: C.P. 725, Tour de la Bourse, Montréal, Canada H4Z 1J9 Fax: 1(819)585-4423 PGP Key: 0xBDFFCD16 Fingerprint: CF3E 4A3F 57AB 8AB2 88FB A1D8 C83D 2E15 BDFF CD16 ** L'homme vivant sous la servitude des lois prend sans s'en douter une âme d'esclave. The man who lives under the servitude of laws takes, without suspecting it, the soul of a slave. (Georges Ripert, Le Déclin du Droit, Paris, Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1949, p. 94) **
Re: Economics of crazy ideas
At 23:57 00-07-21, you wrote: Empirical evidence tells us that most marginal ideas (ranging from PETA's Your kids ought to drink beer, rather than milk, because beer isn't ripped from a cow's udder campaign to the libertarian Privatize the roads campaign) are typically ignored or ridiculed by popular culture and non-intellectuals. If we stick to the assumption that 'people make rational choices,' the obvious conclusion would be: Evaluating crazy ideas requires more time / effort than would likely be rewarded. Yet, there are crazy ideas (defined as ideas that were once thought as completely unrealistic) that become accepted -- e.g., the earth is round, freedom of religion is not disruptive or, say, the White Pine Tree Act was not strong enough.* Why these and not others? Do we have to resort to information-cacade explanations? -JP In the long run, John Maynard Keynes is dead. God for us! * A British law that allowed the seizing of pine trees on the colonists' lands before the American Revolution. As Jim Bovard notes, this was nothing to the power that environmental laws give the current American tyrant. PIERRE LEMIEUX C.P. 725, Tour de la Bourse, Montréal, Canada H4Z 1J9 Fax: 1(819)585-4423 http://www.pierrelemieux.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Backup: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) PGP Key 0xBDFFCD16 Fingerprint: CF3E 4A3F 57AB 8AB2 88FB A1D8 C83D 2E15 BDFF CD16
Re: Economics of crazy ideas
At 06:48 00-07-22, you wrote: Indeed. Now, this only becomes a problem when public good is concerned by decisions taken in common, based on the opinion of people not able to pay the price of deeply understanding the issues, rather than the opinion of people directly concerned, and thus with a rational incentive to pay this price. You are right: rational ignorance is generally associated with collective choices. But the problem is somewhat larger: even if the state does not have an opinion on the shape of the earth, when do people start beleiving Galileo? Where can I find more material about that particular problem, and interesting analyses of it? Information and reputation cascades in the context of the smoking debate are treated by Bertrand Lemennicier in a paper he presented at my Individual Choices and Liberty Seminar. Go in the Papers (or Communications) section at http://www.uqah.uquebec.ca/lemieux. P.L. PIERRE LEMIEUX C.P. 725, Tour de la Bourse, Montréal, Canada H4Z 1J9 Fax: 1(819)585-4423 http://www.pierrelemieux.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Backup: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) PGP Key 0xBDFFCD16 Fingerprint: CF3E 4A3F 57AB 8AB2 88FB A1D8 C83D 2E15 BDFF CD16
Economics of crazy ideas
Why do people have crazy opinions? What are the social consequences of crazy opinions? More importantly, How are promising ideas selected among crazy and non-crazy opinions? What makes an opinion sound crazy, and another one look serious? For example, why do libertarians look more or less crazy in public discourse, and are often absent from public debates, while PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) runs half a dozen websites (including cowsarecool.com) and wage campaigns with slogans like Help chickens in China? Any ideas? PIERRE LEMIEUX C.P. 725, Tour de la Bourse, Montréal, Canada H4Z 1J9 Fax: 1(819)585-4423 http://www.pierrelemieux.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Backup: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) PGP Key 0xBDFFCD16 Fingerprint: CF3E 4A3F 57AB 8AB2 88FB A1D8 C83D 2E15 BDFF CD16
Re: Free Re-fills
At 21:16 00-07-08, you wrote: Related question: Why no free re-fills in Europe? -- It depends what you re-fill. If you have dinner in a Paris Bistrot roman (a chain of upper middle class fast food) and you take the smoked salmon, they will re-fill you as much as you want. Same with their chocolate pudding. If my previous hypethesis is true, this would mean that there is, in Paris, a large clientèle with an elastic demand for smoked salmon, and a small clientèle with a low, non-elastic demand. You want to price discriminate against the former, but not chase away the latter. Interestingly, the Bistrot romain serves very thin slices of smoked salmon, which they re-fill at will. There is no point to give customers more than they would be willing to pay for. PIERRE LEMIEUX Visiting Professor , Université du Québec à Hull Research Fellow, Independent Institute http://www.pierrelemieux.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Backup: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Montréal address: C.P. 725, Tour de la Bourse, Montréal, Canada H4Z 1J9 Fax: 1(819)585-4423 PGP Key 0xBDFFCD16 Fingerprint: CF3E 4A3F 57AB 8AB2 88FB A1D8 C83D 2E15 BDFF CD16 ** L'homme vivant sous la servitude des lois prend sans s'en douter une âme d'esclave. The man who lives under the servitude of laws takes, without suspecting it, the soul of a slave. (Georges Ripert, Le Déclin du Droit, Paris, Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1949, p. 94) **
Economists and broken things
I am not sure this is proper on this serious list, but here are a couple replies (including by economists of two different schools) to the popular saying: If it ain't broken, don't fix it. Calvinist: There is no such thing as a non-broken thing. Epicurean: It is too much trouble fixing it. PC: If they aren't broken, don't fix them. Businessman: It depends on the subsidy. Public-school non graduate: Without no broken thing, you motherfucker! Randian: A broken think is a broken thing. Neoclassical economist: It ain't broken! Austrian economist: Being broken is a discovery process. Sociologist: It is broken. Politician: If it ain't fixed, don't break it. Government bureaucrat: Fix it. PIERRE LEMIEUX Visiting Professor , Université du Québec à Hull Research Fellow, Independent Institute http://www.pierrelemieux.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Backup: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Montréal address: C.P. 725, Tour de la Bourse, Montréal, Canada H4Z 1J9 Fax: 1(819)585-4423 PGP Key 0xBDFFCD16 Fingerprint: CF3E 4A3F 57AB 8AB2 88FB A1D8 C83D 2E15 BDFF CD16 ** L'homme vivant sous la servitude des lois prend sans s'en douter une âme d'esclave. The man who lives under the servitude of laws takes, without suspecting it, the soul of a slave. (Georges Ripert, Le Déclin du Droit, Paris, Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1949, p. 94) **
