From the monthly archives:

November 2005

Glaeser on Paternalism

November 28, 2005

Tyler instructs all good men to shout Ed Glaeser’s new NBER working paper on “Paternalism and Psychology” from the rooftops. I am more than happy to oblige. At a glance, it is clear that this is an important paper. Glaeser stresses a point that Vernon Smith often makes. Sure, folks ain’t hyper-rational homo economicus. We [...]

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Comparison and Growth

November 28, 2005

Magisterial is not a word to be thrown around lightly, but I suspect it applies to Benjamin Friedman’s The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth. (I’ve only been through the first 100 pages, but I don’t imagine it’s going to get any less impressive.) Friedman includes an important discussion of the relation between the comparative [...]

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If There’s a Growing Epidemic in Depression, How Come the Happiness Data Don’t Show It?

November 22, 2005

[Cross-posted to Happiness and Public Policy]
An email exchange with Virginia Postrel prompted me to note for the first time that there’s a real problem in trying to use the happiness data and the depression data at the same time. Almost all the “paradox of prosperity” books cite happiness data that is supposed to show that [...]

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This Mismeaure Of Malaise

November 21, 2005

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has published an op-ed by moi about the way the overdiagnosis of depression leads to underestimation of how happy we are, and to books on the "paradox" of misery amid bounty. Check it out.

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Mises & The Yogi

November 16, 2005

This one’s for my homies over at The Austrian Economists.
As Julian just pointed out to me the other day, Mises says that praxeology, the logic of human action, may not actually apply to all humans. Buddhists, for example, our Schopenhaurian pessimists.
Some philosophies advise men to seek as the ultimate end of conduct the complete [...]

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Is Childbirth National Service?

November 14, 2005

In their recent Weekly Standard future of conservatism piece, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam offer a few natalist policy suggestions to encourage more breeding here in the USA. For example:
Republicans might consider offering tuition credits for years spent rearing children, which could be exchanged for post-graduate or vocational education. These would be modeled on veterans’ [...]

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Libertarian Paternalism Redux

November 14, 2005

I just looked at Sunstein & Thaler’s paper again, and, again, it strikes me as amazingly empty of content. The entire rhetorical effect of the paper comes from its abuse of language.
The pivot of the paper is to call any instance of institutional choice based on concern for the welfare of the people [...]

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More Pro-Growth Progessivism

November 10, 2005

Here is a World Bank paper by Aart Kraay and David Dollar, called, bluntly enough “Growth Is Good for the Poor,” [pdf] which finds that “Average incomes of the poorest fifth of society rise proportionately with average incomes.”
As the world grows increasingly globally interconnected, you have to squarely face the fact that slowing growth [...]

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Cheney in 2008!

November 10, 2005

I think right about now we should be expecting a mindblowing contrarian essay arguing that not only do we need Cheney as POTUS, but that he can win.
Obviously that’s really stupid. But I’d read it!

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Freedom in the Meaningful Sense

November 10, 2005

Here Yglesias argues that too much “economic security” talk sounds persnickety and that the left ought to emphasize a positive notion of freedom. OK. But, huh?
In another sense, more relevant in many contexts, you can’t be especially free if you don’t have any resources. People without cars, living paycheck-to-paycheck, without bank accounts or credit cards, [...]

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Fresh Content Elsewhere

November 9, 2005

I’ve put up a number of possibly entertaining, though not so intellectually challenging posts up at Happiness and Public Policy.

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The Myth of Public Interest and the Flourishing of Political Predation

November 4, 2005

I was listening to “Marketplace” on NPR the other day and my god was I getting annoyed. The story was about some deal that the Department of Labor cut with Wal-Mart, which was perfectly legal, but broke internal labor rules. Anyway, the thing that really struck me was the narrative undercurrent. Wal-Mart was assumed to [...]

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The Spectral Boom in Depression

November 2, 2005

[Cross-posted to Happiness and Public Policy]
I heard on the news this morning that Aetna is planning to cover depression treatments in some of their health plans. The New York Times reports:
Under the plan, Aetna will pay primary care doctors additional fees to screen patients for depression and to provide follow-up consultations for patients who are [...]

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RIP

November 2, 2005

Charles Murray’s remembrance of Joan Kennedy Taylor is truly lovely.

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Wearing John Malkovich

November 1, 2005

Did you know John Malkovich designs and sells clothes? And did you know that I would very eagerly buy these clothes if I was paid like a movie star?

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