Jimmy Carter and oil prices

From Rethinking Carter by William L. Anderson [Posted October 25, 2000] Posted at http://www.mises.org/fullarticle.asp?control=535id=68 by the Von Mises Institute First, he announced gradual decontrol of oil prices and the phasing out of the Keystone-Cops like government allocation

Gas Prices

The Wall Street Journal had a good article and leters about gas prices this week. Cyril Morong April 6, 2004 Commentary (U.S.) Gas Panic By JERRY TAYLOR and PETER VAN DOREN The hysteria is building. Newspapers and television news broadcasts scream that gasoline prices today are higher than

Gas Prices

I forgot a couple of the letters April 8, 2004 Letters No Need to Sing Those Gas-Guzzlin' Blues The excellent April 6 editorial-page piece "Gas Panic" by Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren pointed out that real gasoline prices are not as high as the hysterics would have us believe. But it

nominal wages in the Great Depression

What happened to nominal wages in the Great Depression, especially 1929-33? Did they change much for people who were not laid off? Does anyone know of a good website that shows data for nominal wages in the Great Depression? Is there one that does so for those still employed? Cyril Morong

Inflation adjusted imports and exports.

Anyone know the answer to this? I emailed Bradley Schiller on this and his response is below. Cyril Morong Dr. Schiller:In your book "The Economy Today" (9E), you have statistical tables on theinside covers. For the 1960s, you show the United States with more exportsjust about every year than

CPI

The Wall Street Journal reported: Greenspan "...repeated his lonstanding view that Social Security benefits should be pegged to a price index that measures inflation differently from the consumer price index now used. He prefers the "chained" consumer price index, which better reflects how

Too many choices

This week's edition of Parade Magazine has an article byBarry Schwartz, author of the book "The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less." He is a professor of psychology at Swarthmore. He says that as the number of choices we have grows (for products) we become less happy, that it is too hard to

FDR's Folly

Has anyone read the book FDR's Folly by Jim Powell? Cyril Morong

Senior discounts cut at amusement parks

From the article, it seems that this chain feels that there is some change in demand curve for senior citizens. But not all parks are getting rid of their discounts. Amusement Park Chain Ends Senior Discounts By PATRICK WALTERS PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Roller coasters that go upside down don't

Minimum wage

I think there was a poll taken a few years ago on what policies economists preferred. Does anyone know what percent were against the minimum wage? Cyril Morong

Cost benefit analysis

Does anyone know how often CBA is actually used in making policy? What percent of the federal budget (or state or local) has been determined by CBA? Cyril Morong

SUVs

Does anyone know if SUV owners drive more recklessly than they would if they had a smaller and/or lighter vehichle and if this causes more accidents in the way that Peltzman found that seatbelts caused more accidents? Cyril Morong

Car safety vs. Plane safety

In the book "The Economics of Public Issues," the authors state "Measured in terms of fatalities per mile traveled, airplanes are indeed 15 times safer than cars." I wonder if this is really true. I looked at some data from the NHTSA website and discovered the following: In 2000, about 7000 of

Incentives

The following appeared in an article on grade inflation in the Chronicle of Higher Education: "Grades motivate (a fallacy according to the article). With the exception of orthodox behaviorists, psychologists have come to realize that people can exhibit qualitatively different kinds

Re: Nations as Corporations

How would we know what price to charge for a share? Would the U.S. have a monopoly? Or would it compete with other nations? What would we do about people who try to sneak in without buying a share? Will people be required to proove at any time they own a share or be deported (or worse)?

Glum losers auction

In The Armchair Economist, Landsburg describes the "Glum Losers" auction. The winner (the highest bidder) gets the product and everyone else pays the amount of their bid. Has this auction ever been used? If so, any details? Cyril Morong

Re: New article on cooperation the brain

In a message dated 7/18/02 4:36:44 PM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: When I play the prisoner's dilemma in class, I see very little cooperation. I know one researcher who has repeated a trust game (not prisoner's dilemma) with many classes of students and groups of business

Re: Not such a fantastically entertaining paper

Bill Sjostrom wrote: "Clearly, there are journals that exist solely as outlets for economists at little teaching colleges to get in the one or two papers they need for tenure, for no obvious reason." What are some examples of those journals? Also, what are some good lines of research or

Grade Inflation

Is grade inflation worse at higher priced colleges? I can imagine that if a student flunks out at a higher priced college, that it costs that school more in revenue and that it might be hard to attract students if they have to pay alot of money and then work hard to get good grades. Has any

Re: Why Are Courting Signals Ambiguous?

Robin Hanson's post was very interesting. I have wondered that ambiguous signals might play another role. Suppose all women like men who wear red ties because those men, for some reason, are nicer or richer than others. Assume that this is the only way women can tell the nice guys from the

Re: Economic History Services

Chris Thanks for mentioning this website. It has been a few years since I have taught economic history but I would like to catch up a little. Cyril Morong San Antonio College In a message dated 11/24/00 1:44:30 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Movie popcorn prices

I have been using the book The Armchair Economist for a few years in my classes. A student who worked in a movie theater suggested that popcorn(and candy, drinks, etc.) cost more at the movies because the theater has to have many workers around to handle the rush right before a movie starts.  

Upward Sloping Demand Curves

Very often for water bills, you have to pay more per unit once your consumption goes above a certain level. This might make it seem like the price goes up because your quantity demanded goes up(which reverses the causality) and would mean an upward sloping demand curve. But if there is a

GAS

Is the gas tax in Britain a per liter tax or a percentage of the price tax? Cyril Morong Department of Economics San Antonio College