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Assorted
1. Virginia Postrel has lots of great new posts.
2. Robin Hanson on which beliefs are heritable.
3. David Horowitz's disastrous academic "Bill of Rights" fails in Pennsylvania.
4. The Democratic Congress-to-be is already rejecting two free trade deals.
5. Talk of congestion road pricing for Manhattan.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 24, 2006 at 12:01 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
Seattle just finished an experiment in road usage pricing, and the results were like a textbook description of incentives influencing behavior. People drove less, especially during rush hour
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan at Nov 24, 2006 1:20:04 PM
Disastrous?
Posted by: Steven Andrew Miller at Nov 24, 2006 6:36:49 PM
I'd like to hear more about Mr. Cowen's opinion on the academic Bill of Rights. My state, Ohio, recently (relatively) defeated the bill during my last year at university. There was a quiet debate on campus about what should or shouldn't be done in response to it.
Posted by: cory kates at Nov 24, 2006 7:58:51 PM
You might also be interested in this New York Times review of Professor Duncan Foley's new book, “Adam’s Fallacy: A Guide to Economic Theology.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/us/25beliefs.html?ex=1322110800&en=8e48696ce3b7e7cc&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
The quote that I think might excite some readers is:
"Contemporary capitalism, in his view, is a successful, resilient and adaptive system for creating material wealth. But it is not a stable, self-regulating one. Left to its own devices, for example, it will not “solve the problems of poverty and inequality."
Posted by: Pablo at Nov 25, 2006 10:28:32 AM
4. Appears to be all good from my perspective, although in theory I consider myself to be somewhat of a free trader (it seems necessary to point out that free-trade != free-trade deal, although that should be obvious).
I could go on and explain my reasoning poorly, but MY in http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/11/bothand_not_eitheror/ tgets the basics of my argument better than I would.
Although theoretically free trade can lift all boats, there is no incentive for those that most directly benefit to share those benefits unless they have to.
I would probably also just implement a unilateral free trade agreement with the world.
Posted by: theCoach at Nov 27, 2006 9:51:50 AM
