(November 22, 2009 12:00 AM, by Bryan Caplan) As an undergraduate, I spent hundreds of hours pondering the foundations of morality, also known as "meta-ethics."  In the end, the young Michael Huemer converted me to ethical intuitionism, a view I've held ever since.  (BTW, a decade or so...

(November 21, 2009 08:32 PM, by Arnold Kling) Ben Casnocha is the first to write a review. An excerpt: This is a book for people interested in economics first, entrepreneurship second, and globalization third. It's a book for people looking for contemporary insight on the ideas of people...

(November 21, 2009 08:24 PM, by Arnold Kling) What I call the Recalculation Story has many origins. One of them is Axel Leijonhufvud. He recently wrote, The economy is an adaptive dynamical system. It possesses the self-regulating, "equilibrating" properties that we usually refer to as "market mechanisms". But...

(November 21, 2009 07:40 PM, by Arnold Kling) Those of us who are opposed to the concentration of power in the hands of technocrats have had much to be depressed about over the past year. However, sometimes fortunes change. I wonder if this past week will come to...

(November 20, 2009 04:38 PM, by Arnold Kling) He says they are: Now, you could and should be worried if this thing looked like a great bubble -- if long-term rates looked unreasonably low given the fundamentals. But do they? Long rates fluctuated between 4.5 and 5 percent...

(November 20, 2009 02:25 PM, by David Henderson) I just completed an interview with Moe Ansari of Market Wrap. We talked about the current recession, the health care bill, and various other things. If you want to listen (I think you'll hear an edited version but they might...

(November 20, 2009 08:59 AM, by Arnold Kling) Josh Lerner writes, Upon Singapore's independence in 1965--three years after Jamaica's own establishment as a nation--the two nations were about equal in wealth: the gross domestic product (in 2006 U.S. dollars) was $2,850 per person in Jamaica, slightly higher than...

(November 20, 2009 08:57 AM, by Arnold Kling) Will Wilkinson writes, Ygesias says, "I believe that absent the [TARP] bailout, we'd be looking at even higher unemployment today." I think this is a plausible claim. But I don't know of a satisfactory way to evaluate it. It's plausible...

(November 20, 2009 12:13 AM, by Bryan Caplan) When you play with fire, you get burned.  And when you philosophize with hypotheticals involving Nazis, you get misrepresented.  In the Caplan-Hanson debate, I began:Let me begin with a disclaimer: Despite his moral views, Robin is an incredibly nice, decent...

(November 19, 2009 09:15 PM, by Arnold Kling) Sherry Glied, Ashwin Prabhu, and Norman Edelman do not think so. The value of physicians' underlying human capital is estimated by forecasting an age-earnings profile for doctors based on the characteristics in youth of NLSY cohort participants who subsequently became...

(November 19, 2009 07:23 PM, by Arnold Kling) Reacting to my recent post on the analogy Robert Higgs drew between libertarianism and abolitionism, a commenter wrote, Hans Hoppe, hardcore libertarian, once described what may be the crucial difference between a democratic state and slavery: the latter was private...

(November 19, 2009 04:17 PM, by Bryan Caplan) When a person with crummy but popular arguments says that "truth is relative," I understand their motives.  They're denying that anyone else's arguments are any better, and hoping that there's safety in numbers.  But when a person with clever but...

(November 19, 2009 02:43 PM, by Arnold Kling) The Kauffman Foundation conducted a survey of entrepreneurs. The findings can be inferred from the table of contents. Experience, Management, and Luck: The Keys to Success Professional Networks, Education, Funding, Personal Networks: Important Location, Investor Advice, Alumni Networks, and Regional...

(November 19, 2009 12:41 PM, by Arnold Kling) Simon Johnson writes, There is no question that passing the TARP was the right thing to do. In some countries, the government has the authority to provide fiscal resources directly to the banking system on a huge scale, but in...

(November 19, 2009 11:25 AM, by Arnold Kling) In response to Bryan's post, readers posed some interesting questions to ask in a survey of members of the American Economic Association. Is there any reason besides a desire to learn, or to make entry into a Ph.D. programme easier...

(November 19, 2009 08:52 AM, by Arnold Kling) Paul DeGrauwe writes, My contention is that the rational expectations models are the intellectual heirs of these central planning models. Not in the sense that individuals in these rational expectations models aim at planning the whole, but in the sense...

(November 19, 2009 12:13 AM, by Bryan Caplan) How can any economist - even Krugman - advocate job subsidies and work sharing?  Krugman's answer is that it's a "third-best" solution.  His top three:1. Sumnerian monetary policy.  Seriously, but without the hat tip.2. More fiscal stimulus.3. Job subsidies and...

(November 18, 2009 03:07 PM, by Bryan Caplan) An economist I know just emailed me:I anticipate participating in a survey project of a sample of AEA members. Such a survey is an opportunity for throwing in extraneous questions of interest. Can you think of question or two you...

(November 18, 2009 03:05 PM, by Bryan Caplan) The webpage for my spring, 2010 Graduate Public Choice II course is now up, including the syllabus, complete lecture notes, and homeworks.  About half of the material is from my Graduate Public Finance I course; the rest is new.  Highlights...

(November 18, 2009 01:46 PM, by Arnold Kling) Robert Higgs writes, Slavery existed for thousands of years, in all sorts of societies and all parts of the world. To imagine human social life without it required an extraordinary effort. Yet, from time to time, eccentrics emerged to oppose...