Some Classic Economics Articles
Here are some of my favorite economic articles. You might enjoy them.
Bruce Yandle on Bootleggers and Baptists. I think this is a really deep theory, in that it applies not simply to economic regulation, but almost all political divisions. That is, contra Marx, the Hegelian dialectic is not between those in power and those not, the rich and the poor, but rather, each side in any revolution contains some of both. There simply aren't enough rich to beat 'the poor', and these classes are very heterogeneous, each with various divisions (I remember how the Mexicans and Central Americans used to fight when I lived near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles). Think Emperor Claudius, the Praetorian Guard and the mob, vs the Senators and patricians after the assassination of Caligula, with high-minded rhetoric about Rome leading the PR battle. Henry Manne's Parable of the Parking Lots is a good example of these coalitions applied to economic regulation.
Frederick Bastiat on The Seen and Unseen.
Mark Skousen on Samuelson's Economics Textbook. This book really reflected conventional Macroeconomic wisdom for 50 years, and its tendencies are worth examining. Samuelson highlights the uselessness of Tetlock's Hedgehog and Fox dichotomy, because 1) Samuelson was clearly both, and 2) Tetlock described himself as both. Who isn't both?
R.A. Radford on the Economics of a P.O.W. camp. Notice the politics of economics even in these situations. Hyman Minsky used to tell me markets are good at distributing goods that already exist, like care packages in a POW camp, but not investment, which being subject to Keynesian uncertainty, is too irrational. He ceded the Radford anecdote, yet dismissed its generality.
Tullock and Buchanan on the Calculus of Consent, why collectives choose policies that are suboptimal. Markets can be suboptimal, but giving power to a regulatory body has even greater problems. That is, it's simply not correct to assume a regulator will implement the optimal policy, or anything close to it.
Bruce Yandle on Bootleggers and Baptists. I think this is a really deep theory, in that it applies not simply to economic regulation, but almost all political divisions. That is, contra Marx, the Hegelian dialectic is not between those in power and those not, the rich and the poor, but rather, each side in any revolution contains some of both. There simply aren't enough rich to beat 'the poor', and these classes are very heterogeneous, each with various divisions (I remember how the Mexicans and Central Americans used to fight when I lived near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles). Think Emperor Claudius, the Praetorian Guard and the mob, vs the Senators and patricians after the assassination of Caligula, with high-minded rhetoric about Rome leading the PR battle. Henry Manne's Parable of the Parking Lots is a good example of these coalitions applied to economic regulation.
Frederick Bastiat on The Seen and Unseen.
There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.Most stimulus and redistribution is simply the seen, so shame on economists for generally supporting these boondoggles, usually as a Keynesian pretext for their less defensible, but still understandable, egalitarian ends (the theme of my book The Missing Risk Premium is that this is precisely our dominant instinct, envy over greed).
Mark Skousen on Samuelson's Economics Textbook. This book really reflected conventional Macroeconomic wisdom for 50 years, and its tendencies are worth examining. Samuelson highlights the uselessness of Tetlock's Hedgehog and Fox dichotomy, because 1) Samuelson was clearly both, and 2) Tetlock described himself as both. Who isn't both?
R.A. Radford on the Economics of a P.O.W. camp. Notice the politics of economics even in these situations. Hyman Minsky used to tell me markets are good at distributing goods that already exist, like care packages in a POW camp, but not investment, which being subject to Keynesian uncertainty, is too irrational. He ceded the Radford anecdote, yet dismissed its generality.
Tullock and Buchanan on the Calculus of Consent, why collectives choose policies that are suboptimal. Markets can be suboptimal, but giving power to a regulatory body has even greater problems. That is, it's simply not correct to assume a regulator will implement the optimal policy, or anything close to it.
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