Doug North

The Center for New Institutional Social Sciences at Washington University has posted videos of Doug North talking about his most recent book Violence and Social Orders (Doug North, John Walllis and Barry Weingast)

Oliver Evans Mill

In the 1780s Oliver Evans created a fully automated flour mill. He obtained patent no. 3 for it. George Washington had the system installed in his gristmill at Mount Vernon. The Mill has been resotred and is now the only fully operational Oliver Evans mill (or at least thats what they say at Mount Vernon). For any one interested in economic history it is an amazing sight. You have to go on the week end though; thats when they grind wheat. During the week they grind corn, and that process is not fully automated. You can visit the mill and the distillery without visiting home and plantation.

"Looking Out for Number One"

I think this should be the new motto of UC Berkeley. Its chancellor and vice-chancellor make a pitch in the Washington Post for a new Morrill Act (the act that provided federal support for the land grant colleges). Their plan, however, only calls for federal support for a "limited number of our great public reasearch and teaching universities." I wonder if they have any particular schools in mind.

Behavioral Economics?

In the New York Times Richard Thaler claims that "with the help of a little behavioral economics" we can increase the number of organ donors. He then describes a number of different schemes that have been used in the the U.S. and other countires and concludes that "the key ... is to make sign up easy." All these years I have been telling my students that if you lower the cost of doing something people will do it more. I thought it was just the law of demand. Does this mean we are all behaviorlists now?

Austrian Economics

For students interested in Austrian economics (Scott) here are a series of videos you might find interesting.

Economists got it right

John Taylor's view.

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission began to hold public meetings last week. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a definitive analysis. This week I am going to talk to my economic history class about the Panics of 1837 and 1839. I can tell them that in the last decade economists like Peter Rousseau and John Wallis have added a great deal to our understanding of these events that took place more than a century and a half in the past. See this old post. New papers continue to appear on pretty much every financial crisis in American history. I've recently started reseaching the Panic of 1907 because there are parts of the current story about it that do not make sense to me.

Then again, its not clear the prupose of such commissions is actually better understanding. The opinion page of the Sunday NY Times complains about the commissions slow start and wonders if it reflects "the apparent ambivelence of lawmakers to rein in the banks?"