EconLog Archive
Sports Economics
Will Commodity Sports Last?
If you wanted to bet on the Super Bowl this past weekend, you had options. You may have bet with a friend. If you live in a state where it’s legal, you could have gone to a casino or used a casino’s app. Or, starting last year, you could have entered into an event contract .. MORE
International Trade
The US is a Small Country
In my recent post on US manufacturing jobs and tariffs, I mentioned a Wall Street Journal article that pointed toward American tariffs having little impact on Chinese exports; the exports are simply being shifted to other countries. In the earlier post, I discussed what that fact meant for US manufacturing jobs. Here, I discuss what .. MORE
Price Theory
EconLog Price Theory: Federal Reserve Revenue
This is the latest in our series of posts in our series on price theory problems with Professor Bryan Cutsinger. You can see all of Cutsinger’s problems and solutions by subscribing to his EconLog RSS feed. Share your proposed solutions in the comments. Professor Cutsinger will be present in the comments for the next couple .. MORE
Sam's Links
Sam’s Links: January Edition
Sam works on innovation policy at Progress Ireland, an independent policy think tank in Dublin, and runs a publication called The Fitzwilliam. Most relevant to us, on his personal blog, he writes a popular link roundup; what follows is an abridged version of his Links for December. Blogs and short links 1. I’ve finished my .. MORE
Price Theory
Cutsinger’s Solution: The Price of Education
Question: Is the following true or false? Explain your reasoning. If the quantity of higher education services supplied does not rise with the price of those services, i.e., if supply is perfectly inelastic, then subsidizing the demand for higher education services will primarily benefit universities and their employees. Solution: I use this question in my .. MORE
Competition
The Warmth of Cooperation
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently caused something of an uproar when he contrasted the “the frigidity of rugged individualism” with the “warmth of collectivism.” This framing echoes the familiar criticism that capitalism forces people to go it alone as “atomistic individuals.” The thought goes like this: markets do real damage to the social .. MORE
Labor Market
The Deportation Labor Shock
Mass deportation is often framed as a pro‑worker policy. Remove unauthorized immigrants, the argument goes, and native wages will rise as labor supply contracts. This logic is intuitive, politically potent, and economically incomplete. Mass deportation is a massive market intervention. When examined through the lens of labor markets, production complementarities, and historical evidence, mass deportation .. MORE
Regulation
Marginal Returns of Regulation
On this post by Kevin Corcoran, frequent commentator Steve writes: “Is there a health care system in the world that would be regarded as first world quality that does not have health care heavily regulated? Is it just a coincidence that in the countries where health care is not heavily regulated that health care is .. MORE
Property Rights
Everyone Take Copies
I have a new working paper with Bart Wilson titled: “You Wouldn’t Steal a Car: Moral Intuition for Intellectual Property.” The title of this post, “everyone take copies,” comes from a conversation between the human subjects in an experiment in our lab, on which the paper is based. The experiment was studying how and when .. MORE
Competition
What is Competition?
Economists extol the importance of competition in markets for driving prices down and quality up. But what is “competition” and how does it actually work? To non-economists, the word conjures the idea of something like a sporting contest, where there can be one winner while everyone else loses. But this comparison fails on at least .. MORE
Education
AI and the Art of Judgment
A New York magazine article titled “Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College” made the rounds in mid-2025. I think about it often, and especially when I get targeted ads that are basically variations on “if you use our AI tool, you’ll be able to cheat without getting caught.” Suffice it to say it’s dispiriting. .. MORE
Economic Institutions
Avoiding the Resource Trap in Post-Maduro Venezuela
The recent removal of Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela’s presidency is a dramatic development after more than two decades of socialist experimentation under Hugo Chávez and Maduro, characterized by expropriation, macroeconomic mismanagement, and political repression. Although there is much uncertainty about the economic and political future of Venezuela, economics can offer some guidance—and warnings. One such .. MORE
Price Theory
EconLog Price Theory: The Price of Education
This is the latest in our series of posts in our series on price theory problems with Professor Bryan Cutsinger. You can see all of Cutsinger’s problems and solutions by subscribing to his EconLog RSS feed. Share your proposed solutions in the comments. Professor Cutsinger will be present in the comments for the next couple .. MORE
#ReadWithMe
Wading into Controversy
It is time to explore the principles on which human nature has been constructed and the social structures that are derived from behaviors embedded in the human genome. —Nicholas Wade, The Origin of Politics (46) Nicholas Wade is concerned that we are attempting to establish cultural norms and political structures that stray too far from .. MORE
Economic Theory
Accounting vs. Economic Profit
In any principles of economics class, students learn the difference between accounting profit and economic profit. Accounting profit, which is what one typically understands when discussing “profit,” is total revenue minus your monetary costs. It is what appears on the bottom line of an accounting statement as “profit.” Economic profit is a broader term. Recall .. MORE
Political Economy
Cuba After Communism
On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro and his bearded revolutionaries marched into Havana. Church bells rang across the island as Batista fled into exile. This January 1st marked the 67th anniversary of that revolution. Sixty-seven years of a system built on deception, imposed through violence, and sustained through repression. But now, for the first time .. MORE
Price Theory
Cutsinger’s Solution: Inflation and Healthcare
Question: Over the past several decades, the inflation-adjusted price of healthcare has increased. Based on this information alone, can you infer the source of the higher price–lower supply or higher demand? If not, what additional data would you need to determine whether higher prices are being driven by changes in supply or demand? Solution: I .. MORE
Economic Theory
Peace on Earth, Goodwill Towards Refs
All major American professional sports have a time of year when they capture the eyes of the nation. America’s pastime, baseball, has the ‘Fall Classic’, the NFL dominates Thanksgiving, and the country has an entire weekend dedicated to the Super Bowl. Christmas Day is the NBA’s time to shine with action from noon to midnight .. MORE
Microeconomics
Silver and Gold
With the holidays upon us, what could be better than Christmas movies? And Christmas songs? And Christmas movies with great Christmas songs, like “Silver and Gold” as sung by Burl Ives in Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer? And of course, there’s the profit-seeking entrepreneur-prospector, Yukon Cornelius, obsessed with finding silver and gold. If silver and gold .. MORE
Microeconomics
The Fast Fashion Dilemma
Shoppers are filling their carts, both literally and digitally, with last-minute gifts. One tempting purchase, whether for gifting or for showing up in style at a holiday sweater party, is ultra-cheap clothing from Shein. Like many around the world, the French hunt for deals in December. During a recent interview with journalist Thomas Mahler, I .. MORE
Tariffs
Diving into Tariffs at Liberty Fund Today
From the editors: We have an in-depth discussion about tariffs across two Liberty Fund sites today. EconLog contributor David Hebert has a piece on the consequences of America’s new, more protectionist trade policies on our sister site, Law and Liberty, this morning. This piece makes a good complement to today’s EconLog post by Jon Murphy, .. MORE