How primary commodity producers — farming, mining and energy companies — remember 2008 will be a bit like how different people remember an amusement-park visit. For those who like scary rollercoasters, it was great. For others, the sooner forgotten, the…
Emotion clouds tax policy debates
It is human nature to view a policy differently depending on whether it hurts you or favors you. It is also human for politicians to view as unjust a policy that hurts vocal citizens. But this doesn’t imply that catering…
Only winner in Madoff’s scheme: Behavioral economics
Another shoe has dropped with the exposure of the Bernard Madoff fraud, in which an investment manager is said to have bilked investors out of $50 billion in a massive Ponzi scheme. This criminal fiasco poses fundamental questions about how…
Balanced budgets can be counterproductive
It may be good that many states are required to balance their budgets, but such provisions pose an economically perverse incentive when the economy is at either extreme of the business cycle. Balanced budget requirements are ubiquitous, with Vermont the…