I chuckle at frequent angry emails accusing me of being an economic theorist who knows nothing about the real world. As my colleagues and students know, I am about as un-theoretical as an economist can be. But I recognize that…
Sometimes, regulation should check individual rights
What to do when one individual’s pursuit of her own self-interest collides with the well-being of another person? That is a difficult problem in any economic philosophy, but it is especially troublesome for libertarians who fiercely oppose government regulation of…
Minnesota’s state budget: a reality check
Recent budget disputes here in Minnesota furnish illustrations of how even a simple statistic can be misused in ways that mislead rather than enlighten. So does a recent op-ed about youth unemployment. Start with our state’s fiscal problems. Many writers…
Rhetoric obscures facts on taxes, spending
The popular mantra that “we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem” has been repeated so often that most Americans accept it as true without ever looking at the data. It would improve the level of the public debate…