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Assorted links
2. Imaginary books, not created by us I might add
3. A new economics and food blog, including (but not just) reviews of Baltimore
4. Judy Chevalier's debut NYT column covers my colleague Thomas Stratmann and GMU graduate student Michael Makowsky
Posted by Tyler Cowen on September 2, 2007 at 07:33 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
I'm one of those who is familiar with Sowell only from the occasional column, and these seem to be, as suggested in the linked site, mostly boilerplate Republican hackery. Maybe his earlier work was more impressive, but I'm puzzled by this:
How to account for the many ways in which blacks were making more progress before passage of the Civil Rights Act than they were after? An impressive example: College-educated black women were out-earning college-educated white women by 1960, four years before the Civil Rights Act.
as evidence of lack of progress from the CRA, especially coming from an economist. Suppose we have two groups of people, equally talented on average but with variation within the groups. We let, say, the top 1% of group A go to college and the top 10% of group B. Isn't it to be expected that the college graduates from group A will be brighter, harder-working, etc., than those from B, and that this is likely to translate into higher earnings?
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Sep 2, 2007 12:55:15 PM
Sowell's books are great. Most of his essays are also of the same quality when he sticks to economics. His critiques of political policy with regards to markets are usually devastating. This is the main reason political activists on the Left hate him so much.
I think he justifiably gets called Republican apologist because of his pretty outspoken stance on the present war on terror.
All in all, I recommend regularly reading his essays (he publishes 2 to 3 per week).
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Sep 2, 2007 1:53:52 PM
Dr. Sowell, the economist and Marine, gets both economics and the war on terror right.
Posted by: Max at Sep 2, 2007 8:09:21 PM
On another note, I always considered Chevalier's paper on football betting to be very underrated.
Posted by: Keith at Sep 2, 2007 11:57:49 PM
I liked both 'ethnic america' and 'migrations and culture'. Sowell's essays are pretty unimpressive though.
Posted by: joeo at Sep 3, 2007 12:50:54 AM
Of course it is possible to be in favor of preemptive war against terrorism, and still be a lower-case L libertarian.
Perhaps if he took a Reason mag slant, and threw in a few articles about legalizing pot every once in awhile, the disaffected Left that makes up so much of the libertarian body today might cut him some slack.
Boudreaux over at the Cafe likes to take a few indirect side shots at Sowell every once in awhile, but he quit doing it so much after quite a backlash in the comments section.
Posted by: Ray G at Sep 3, 2007 3:07:39 PM
You should be aware that the comments section of the blog you link to on this matter has taken quite an interesting turn.
Should I take it that you endorse the debate there as one still worth having?
Posted by: pangea at Sep 4, 2007 1:49:41 PM
Q: Who is Thomas Sowell? A: That guy who wrote a loony column in the paper when I was a kid?
Posted by: davec at Sep 5, 2007 7:56:59 AM
Q: Who is Thomas Sowell? A: Tyler Cowen with a 'fro?
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