Econ Talk

At Econ Talk Russ Roberts talks to Daren Acemoglu, the Kieth Richards of economics, about why nations fail.

Bad Economics: Krauthammer on Oil Prices

Charles Krauthammer criticizes President Obama for suggesting that "Drill, Baby, Drill" wil nott lowee oil prices. He writes: "So: Decreasing U.S. demand will lower oil prices, but increeasing U.S. supply willl not? This is ridiculous. Either both do or neither does. Does Obama read his own speeches?"
Who is right. On this point it is the president. Yes, price is determined by both supply and demand, but not everyone is a large enough part of supply or demand to influence the price. If I decide to stop working it won't change the salaries of professors. If I double the amount of eggs I consume it won't increase the price of eggs. Why? Because in each case I account for a small part of the total supply and demand. The U.S. accounts for a fairly small part of supply. In terms of proven reserves it was less than 2% of the world total 2009. On the other hand, we accounted for over 20% of world consumption. Thus, changes in U.S. consumption are more capable of influencing the price than changes in U.S. production.

All of this does not imply that we should not increase oil production. Domestic oil production will generate income and create jobs. It won't, however, lower the price of gas

Paper for Business History Conference

This is the abstract of the paper we are presenting at BHC at the end of the month.
Bradley A. Hansen and Mary Eschelbach Hansen

Business and the Evolution of Debt Collection Laws: Garnishment and Wage Assignment in Illinois, 1880-1930

In the 1870s and 1880s legislation and court rulings combined to make the wages of a head of household almost completely exempt from garnishment in Illinois. Yet by the 1930s, Illinois was regarded as one the states where it was easiest for a creditor to claim a large share of a debtor's wages. We argue that the driving force behind the evolution of garnishment and wage assignment in Illinois was the conflict between two groups of business people: large employers and businesses that supplied credit to wage earners. Large employers regarded garnishment and wage assignment as costly nuisances and sought to restrict their use. Businesses that provided credit to wage earners regarded garnishment and wage assignment as important tools and sought to minimize restrictions on their use. Each group pursued change through legislation, through the judiciary, and through private contracting. Because the conflict between large employers and businesses that provided credit was meditated through the political and legal systems, the outcomes were also shaped by the influence of other interest groups and by the ideologies of judges. By the 1930s, this combination of forces left Illinois with a relatively moderate garnishment law but virtually unrestricted use of wage assignment.

Economic Theory and Prediction

I was listening to a podcast at New Books in Law with Lynn Stout discussing her recent book Cultivating Conscience: How Good Laws Make Good People. She was arguing against the assumption of rational self interested behavior and pointed to the large amount of evidence that people often behave in ways that are not narrowly self interested. She then noted that some economists have tried to get around this by saying that people can value things other than money.  She, however, claimed that doing this eliminated the ability to make predicitions because you could explain anything by making the right assumption about what people value: "They did this because that is what they want to do." I think this misinterprets the sort of predicitions that can be made with economic theory. Economic theory enables us to make predicitions about how groups of people will respond to changes in constraints. Assuming that people value giving money to charity does not prevent me from making predicitions. I predict that, in general, if we lower the cost of giving to charity people will give more to charity. I predict that if we increase the cost of voting, in general, people will vote less. One of the fundamental assumptions in economics is that people like lots of different things and that they have tochoose between them. Assuming that one of those things is a nice house and another is feeding the poor presents no problem.The problem is not assuming that people value things other than money, the problem is using changes in those preferences rather than changes in constraints to explain behavior. For instance, explaining financial crises as a result of greed, as if people have become more greedy, tends not to hold up to scrutiny.

Interestingly enough, Professor Stout later noted that if you want to get people to behave ina pro-social fashion you need to make sure that the benefits of selfish behavior are not too great.

Three Essays In Search of a Point

I just received a job market packet from a large university, which I will not name. The dissertations include "Three Essays in Applied Economics," "Three Essays in Econometrics, and "Essays in Econometrics." Don't worry. There were three essays in "Essays in Econometrics."  

Dealing with the Situation

Here is an example of an attempt at a private solution to a negative externality.

Why Economics Needs History

Barry Eichengreen's INET talk