Marginal Revolution

*Realizing Freedom*

That's the title of the new Tom Palmer book and the subtitle is apt: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice.  It delivers what it promises plus the very short essays (Iraq, gay pride in Moscow) are quite interesting.  I view this book as defining one of the main threads in modern libertarian thought:

1. Cato-influenced (for lack of a better word).  There is an orthodox reading of what "being libertarian" means, defined by the troika of free markets, non-interventionism, and civil liberties.  It is based on individual rights but does not insist on anarchism.  A ruling principle is that libertarians should not endorse state interventions.  I read Palmer's book as belonging to this tradition, broadly speaking.

2. Rothbardian anarchism.  Free-market protection agencies will replace government-as-we-know-it.  War is evil and the problems of anarchy pale in comparison.  David Friedman offered a more utilitarian-sounding version of this approach, shorn of Misesian influence.

3. Mises Institute nationalism.  Gold standard, a priori reasoning, monetary apocalypse, and suspicious of immigration because maybe private landowners would not have let those people into their living rooms.

4. Jeff Friedman and Critical Review: Everything is up for grabs, let's be consequentialists and focus on the welfare state because that's where the action is.  Marx is dead.  The case for some version of libertarianism ultimately rests upon voter ignorance and, dare I say it, voter irrationality.

5. "Hayek libertarianism."  All or most of the great libertarian thinkers are ultimately compatible with each other and we have a big tent of all sorts of classical liberal ideas.  Hayek and Friedman are the chosen "public faces" of this approach.  "There's a classical liberal tradition and classical liberal values and we can be fuzzy on a lot of other things."

What am I leaving out?  And which will win out as the dominant strand?

The eloquent Craig Garthwaite

He emails me:

There is also a broader point that I have always wondered when people cite the low administrative costs of Medicare.  At least a portion of it has to come from the fact that they cover everything with little dispute.  In addition, Medicare is also approaching fiscal insolvency.  These are not two unrelated points, and therefore I wonder if perhaps Medicare might want to spend a little bit more on administrative costs?

Addendum: More from Megan McArdle.

Matt Yglesias reviews *Create Your Own Economy*

The review is here, excerpt:

It’s a bit hard to do the book justice because the subject matter is so unorthodox. So I’ll put it this way instead. I first cracked the book one afternoon intending to read for about ninety minutes and then go get on my bike and meet someone. While reading, I decided to change plans and take the bus instead so as to create more time (both coming and going) when I could read more Create Your Own Economy. There’s no real discussion of policy issues here, but you do get a fascinating analysis of Sherlock Holmes.

You can buy the book here.

Administrative Costs

In the latest debate: Paul Krugman attacks Greg Mankiw for linking to a study by Robert Book arguing that administrative costs under Medicare are not as low as many people think.  Book defends against Krugman's attack here.  I find the debate peculiar for a number of reasons:

1)  Picking out one measure of health care "costs" to compare systems is sadly reminiscent of the arguments for socialism.  Do you remember those arguments?  Under socialism:

• "Think of how much money we will save on advertising!"

• "Socialism will lower costs by maximizing economies of scale!" 

• "Money will be used for production not profits!"

Exactly these arguments are regularly trotted out in the debate over administrative costs in health care so color me unimpressed.  To be clear, the point is not that these statements are false - the point is that these premises to the argument are all in some sense true it's just the conclusion, socialism is more efficient than capitalism, which turned out to be false.  We tried that and it didn't work. In other words, you have to compare systems not arbitrarily pick out for comparison one type of costs.

2)  Closely related to this point is the bizarre habit of taking about costs without mentioning benefits.  The implicit argument appears to be that administrative costs are simply waste - this is the ancient cutting out the middleman fallacy.  Administrative benefits, for example, reduce fraud and are a necessary consequence of making it easy for patients to get second and third opinions from different doctors.

3)  Even if we could switch from a private to a public system and save administrative costs, the deadweight costs of taxation will far exceed any reasonable savings.

4)  Any savings on administrative costs is a one-time level effect but the real issue with health care costs is growth as a share of GDP.  (By the way, this same point explains why the debate over whether the public plan will discipline private monopolies is not especially important, monopoly--even if it is a  problem--could at best explain a level effect not a growth effect which is where the action is.)

5)  I'm not surprised that administrative costs under Medicare and under Canada's system suggest some potential cost reductions from moving to a single-payer system--again, Lada did save on marketing expenses--but it's a complete blunder to use Medicare administrative costs as an argument in favor of a "public option."  The whole point of the public option, so we are told, is to compete on a level footing with private plans which means marketing expenses and all the rest.     

Addendum: n.b. this post is about administrative costs not other reasons for preferring one system to another.  See also Tyler on administrative costs further below.

Symposium on Paul Collier

You will find a Collier essay on democracy and development along with numerous comments, including from Bill Easterly and Nancy Birdsall, all courtesy of Boston Review.

Easterly is not happy:

I have been troubled by Paul Collier’s research and policy advocacy for some time. In this essay he goes even further in directions I argued were dangerous in his previous work. Collier wants to de facto recolonize the “bottom billion,” and he justifies his position with research that is based on one logical fallacy, one mistaken assumption, and a multitude of fatally flawed statistical exercises.

Nancy Birdsall suggests that donors support more investment in policing.  She also notes:

The economy of sub-Saharan Africa—including Nigeria and South Africa—is smaller than the economy of New York City.

There is much more at the link.

Administrative costs, a simple point or two

Andrew Gelman serves up some links.  Mankiw's addendum serves up some more.

Public sector programs usually have higher administrative costs -- all relevant costs considered -- than corresponding private sector programs.  The public sector program is funded by taxation.  That means the public sector doesn't have to worry so much about marketing or meeting payroll on commercial revenue alone.  That will bring significant cost savings on administrative matters.  But you can't stop counting there.

The deadweight loss from taxation is perhaps twenty percent or more.  (It depends on which tax you consider as "the marginal tax" and there is not a simple factual answer to that question.)  That should be factored into any comparison, even if you define that cost as "not an administrative cost." 

The public sector also engages in less monitoring of who receives its services.  If you're 67 and have worked a lifetime in this country, usually you can receive Medicare benefits.  The "indiscriminate" nature of the program may be either a net social cost or a net social benefit but certainly it should not be counted as zero or ignored.

If you favor "indiscriminate" programs over targeted programs, OK.  But the accompanying lesson is not one about the relative efficiency of the public sector at a comparable task.  The lesson is that sometimes the public sector can be more effective when you don't wish to discriminate in supplying a particular kind of service.

TANSTAAFL.