Stand-Up Economist

Economics

What is (and isn't) funny about economics

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  A response to Bryan Caplan

  Posted 1/11/10

  Bryan Caplan of George Mason University has written a thoughtful review of my Cartoon Introduction to Economics, so I want to offer a response, starting (for no really good reason) at the bottom of his review and proceeding to the top.
  We first find Caplan arguing that my co-author Grady Klein and I “shouldn’t have run [...]

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• My new paper with Elaina Rose on economics education

  Posted 12/11/09

  Elaina Rose and I have a new working paper out: Why are economics students more selfish than the rest?
  The abstract: A substantial body of research suggests that economists are less generous than other professionals and that economics students are less generous than other students. We address this question using administrative data on donations to social [...]

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• On “The Story of Cap and Trade”

  Posted 12/05/09

  There’s a new video out that criticizes cap-and-trade. Overall, I’d give it a “C”. Here’s why:
  The good

  The dangers of promising something for nothing. Many supporters of the current cap-and-trade legislation work hard to avoid the fundamental truth about cap-and-trade, namely that—like a carbon tax—it reduces pollution by making polluting expensive. As a result, it is [...]

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• Good thing my PhD’s not from Harvard!

  Posted 11/09/09

  Dick Armey (former House majority leader and himself an econ PhD) in an NYT Magazine article by Michael Sokolove:

  He spent the first part of his working life as a professor, rising to chairman of the economics department at North Texas State University. “I’m an economist and, I don’t mind telling you, a damn good [...]

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• My hilarious global warming exchange with Ruffin and Gregory

  Posted 11/06/09

  In November 2000 (almost ten years ago!) I received a complimentary copy of a new microeconomics textbook by two professors at the University of Houston. The book’s treatment of global warming was so amazing that I picked up some HTML (thanks Barb!!!) and brought their text onto the web, along with an email exchange with [...]

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• Tragedy of the Commons R.I.P.? Not quite.

  Posted 10/24/09

  Congratulating Elinor Ostrom for winning the Nobel Prize is terrific, but please don’t get carried away like Jay Walljasper, who writes Tragedy of the Commons, R.I.P.
  It is one thing to say that the Tragedy of the Commons is sometimes solved by community-based management or other bottom-up processes, but it is quite another thing to imply [...]

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• I agree with George Will!

  Posted 10/22/09

  Not about everything, of course, but we do both agree that mandatory recycling laws are mostly pointless (so much for my chances of ever being elected to public office!) and believe it or not we even have some common ground on climate change, and I don’t just mean that we both support replacing payroll taxes [...]

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• A bit more on Superfreakonomics

  Posted 10/20/09

  We’ve all spent more than enough time on this, but since my previous posts are getting some play (e.g., from Greg Mankiw) I’m going to take the time to write up a few more (concluding?) thoughts:
  First: In an earlier post I wrote that “since Steven Levitt doesn’t do any research on climate economics my hunch [...]

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• More Superfreakonomics: emails from Steven Levitt

  Posted 10/18/09

  [Update Oct 19: My (concluding?) thoughts here.]
  This may not be terribly interesting, but here is an email correspondence I had with Steven Levitt this morning:
  From: Yoram Bauman
  To: Steven Levitt
  Hi Steve: This email is a hard one for me to write because it may void your kind offer to mention my forthcoming cartoon book on your [...]

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• Climate change in Superfreakonomics

  Posted 10/18/09

  Update Oct 18 11:07am PST: My email exchange with Steven Levitt is here.
  Update Oct 19: My (concluding?) thoughts here.
  Joe Romm at climateprogress.org posts a PDF of the climate change chapter in the forthcoming book Superfreakonomics by economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner, and in my opinion the chapter is misleading and incredibly disappointing. [...]

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