Category Archives: Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger

Price discrimination explains adjunct salaries?

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Arnold Kling

Tyler Cowen writes, My immediate reaction was “Given the crowding in the sector, and that they presumably earn non-pecuniary returns from the enjoyment of teaching, shouldn’t we be taxing them at a higher rate?” He is referring to the low … Continue reading →

Posted in Introductory Economics, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger | 3 Comments

Re-framing David Cutler’s proposal

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Arnold Kling

David Cutler writes, Administrative costs in the health-care system are a classic public good. Payers and providers may together agree that standardizing billing codes and quality reporting would be valuable, but no single actor has an incentive to pay for … Continue reading →

Posted in business economics, Economics of Health Care, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger | 7 Comments

Heather MacDonald’s reasoning is not sound

Posted on March 14, 2020 by Arnold Kling

Heather MacDonald writes, Even assuming that coronavirus deaths in the United States increase by a factor of one thousand over the year, the resulting deaths would only outnumber annual traffic deaths by 2,200. It is unsound to compare a relatively … Continue reading →

Posted in Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger, virus crisis | Tagged | 21 Comments

Macroeconomics of the virus crisis, 4

Posted on March 13, 2020 by Arnold Kling

Some very welcome humility from the economists on the IGM forum. They are asked whether we should think of this as mostly a demand shock or mostly a supply shock, and a lot of them refuse to take the bait. … Continue reading →

Posted in PSST and Macro, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger, virus crisis | 2 Comments

Macroeconomics and the virus crisis, II

Posted on March 12, 2020 by Arnold Kling

Before I get to that, Matt Ridley writes, There are already several different strains of the virus, one of which, the L strain, looks to be more lethal than others. What? Whoa!! Somebody needs to shout this from the rooftops. … Continue reading →

Posted in Timothy Taylor is my Favorite Blogger, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger, virus crisis | 11 Comments

The introverted anthropologist

Posted on March 10, 2020 by Arnold Kling

I found the Tim Ferriss/Tyler Cowen podcast very worthwhile, probably more than you will. Points that struck me were: –Tyler talks about economics as a branch of anthropology. –Tyler says that he is very even-tempered and rarely unhappy. –Although it … Continue reading →

Posted in Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger | 8 Comments

Giving globalization a bad name

Posted on March 8, 2020 by Arnold Kling

Reacting to a post by Peirre Lemieux on the coronavirus, Alberto Mingardi writes, Will people learn the lesson, and realize that a closed economy is poorer, as Pierre hopes? I fear not. Though the emergency measures somehow provide us with … Continue reading →

Posted in International issues, PSST and Macro, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger, virus crisis | Tagged , | 19 Comments

Did you two visit the same future?

Posted on February 25, 2020 by Arnold Kling

Ross Douthat writes, the supposed cutting edge of capitalism is increasingly defined by technologies that have almost arrived, business models that are on their way to profitability, by runways that go on and on without the plane achieving takeoff. Today … Continue reading →

Posted in books and book reviews, Growth Causes and Consequences, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger | 16 Comments

Catch phrases, intellectuals, and shelf life

Posted on February 18, 2020 by Arnold Kling

Scholar’s Stage writes, tweeters maintained that no one who was a prominent writer and thinker in the aughts has aged well through the 2010s. Pointer from Tyler Cowen, who offers some characteristically terse and contrarian suggestions for how a public … Continue reading →

Posted in The Wisdom of Robin Hanson, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger | 48 Comments

Tyler Cowen on Charles Murray

Posted on February 1, 2020 by Arnold Kling

Cowen writes, “8. The shared environment usually plays a minor role in explaining personalities, abilities, and social behavior.” Here I have what I think is a major disagreement with Murray. If he means the term “shared environment” in the narrow … Continue reading →

Posted in books and book reviews, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger | Tagged | 39 Comments