The marked increase in the inequality of how income is distributed in our country is perhaps the most important problem our society faces and one of knottiest. It interlaces with other challenges, including federal fiscal issues and the long-run rate…
When is data too costly for it’s benefit?
Should we require meat packers to print the country of origin on every package of meat sold? Should the government publish long-term projections of spending, revenues and the national debt? These contemporary questions are important ones and economists can furnish…
Death panel rhetoric misleads
Only time will reveal all the effects of the Affordable Care Act on medical use and spending, but it already has fostered excessive rhetoric and general looniness. And no aspect of the new law provokes more of this than the…
Ronald Coase’s work aided libertarian thought
It is remarkable that Nobel laureate Ronald Coase, who died Monday in Chicago, lived to be nearly 103 years old, and it is unfortunate for his adopted country that his insightful views no longer will be forthcoming. The nation is…