From the monthly archives:

August 2007

More on the Missing Evidence of Anxiety

August 30, 2007

Not surprisingly, I found Ezra’s reply to my post on the demand for populism unpersuasive. Here’s Ezra:
Notice, here, that Will uses “life satisfaction” rather than anything directly related to the economic numbers for his point. That’s because the economic numbers are very bad for his point, But as Will — who dearly loves his “alternative [...]

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The Demand for Populism in the Imaginary Age of Anxiety

August 29, 2007

I read Ross Douthat’s new Atlantic article on the electoral opportunity open to the Democrats as a chance to characterize the Democratic “threat” in a way that makes Douthat’s conservative “populist” alternative look like an attractive counter-strategy for ‘08 Republicans in the market for advisers.
The pressure of continued outsourcing may also increase the public’s appetite [...]

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Radicals for Capitalism Chat

August 28, 2007

Brian Doherty and I discuss his book Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement at Bloggingheads TV. It’s an incredibly rich book, and there’s a lot more I would have liked to have touched on, but you can only do so much in an hour. Enjoy!

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Why Isn’t Caplan in the Kitchen?

August 27, 2007

Bryan Caplan argues the 50/50 husband/wife domestic work norm runs afoul of the principle of comparative advantage.
What if a man has a much higher wage than his wife, but can’t clean, cook, or shop to save his life? Should he still do half the cleaning, cooking, and shopping? Wouldn’t husband and wife alike be better [...]

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Shaw on Inequality

August 27, 2007

From George Bernard Shaw’s The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism:
Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: character, conduct, and capacity are everything…. There would be great people and ordinary people and little people, but the great would always be those who had [...]

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Top Ten!

August 24, 2007

I was alerted today that my happiness paper has edged into the top ten downloads in a couple of SSRN categories. Apparently it doesn’t take much. (11 whole downloads! Woo!) Anyway, I sense that these things can be sort of self-reinforcing. People want to read what other people have read. So, if you think you’d [...]

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Almost Nothing Rotten in Denmark

August 23, 2007

My colleague Dan Mitchell complains that Denmark’s new tax cuts aren’t deep enough. That’s his job. And he’s probably right. But, I wonder: Does Denmark’s tax policy imperil its citizens’ well-being? I imagine there are a good number of Danes upset about their astronomically high taxes, but they also must be pretty popular. Also, if [...]

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