History of Capitalism

The New York Times examines the rise of courses focused on the history of capitalism.

Armen Alchian

Marginal Revolution and Organizations and Markets are reporting that Arment Alchian passed away. I'll never understand why he did not receive the Nobel Prize.

Financial Regulation and the Panic of 1907

My paper "Financial Regulation and the Panic of 1907" will be in the Winter 2013 Business History Review.
Here is the abstract

Previous studies of the Panic of 1907 have argued that lax regulation enabled trust companies to take excessive risks, leading to a loss of confidence and massive runs. These studies have, however, given relatively little attention to the historical development of trust companies. This paper argues that a more historical perspective can lead to a better understanding of the institutional framework and the actions of trust companies. Depositors did not lose confidence because of inadequate regulation; depositors lost confidence in specific trust companies because of false rumors, and diversity among trust companies hindered cooperation to halt the Panic.

And here is an earlier version on SSRN

Sometimes Bad Things Happen to Good Trust Companies: A Reexamination of the Trust Company Panic of 1907

Happy Constitution Day

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html

Romney Plan?

I received an email from Economists for Romney, asking me to join them in endorsing his economic plan. The email said that

Governor Romney would:

• Reduce marginal tax rates on business and wage incomes and broaden the tax base to increase investment, jobs, and living standards.
• End the exploding federal debt by controlling the growth of spending so federal spending does not exceed 20 percent of the economy.
• Restructure regulation to end "too big to fail," improve credit availability to entrepreneurs and small businesses, and increase regulatory accountability, and ensure that all regulations pass rigorous benefit-cost tests.
• Improve our Social Security and Medicare programs by reducing their growth to sustainable levels, ensuring their viability over the long term, and protecting those in or near retirement.
• Reform our healthcare system to harness market forces and thereby reduce costs and increase quality, empowering patients and doctors, rather than the federal bureaucracy.
• Promote energy policies that increase domestic production, enlarge the use of all western hemisphere resources, encourage the use of new technologies, end wasteful subsidies, and rely more on market forces and less on government planners.

I'm not sure whether this is the plan, but there was no link to to a more detailed plan. It sounds like good stuff, but if there is an actual plan for reducing the growth of Medicare, Social Security and the debt I would like to see it before I endorse it.

Former Students

Scott Drenkard at the Tax Foundation

and Kimberly Suttle at the Lexington Institute

Bad History of Economic Thought

Nicholas Wapshott appears to believe that ignorance of economics should not keep one from writing about it. His editorial in the Washington Post today suggests that the United States experienced hyperinfaltion in the 1970s and that Milton Friedman thought government spending caused inflation and the Fed should manage interest rates to control the economy. In other words, he knows nothing about Friedman or economics more broadly. Nevertheless, someone published a book that he wrote about Hayek and Keynes. Fortunately, the Fredericksburg Free Lance Star ran opposing editorials by Don Boudreaux and Dani Rodrik.

Elinor Ostrom

Her death is a great loss for all the social sciences. Its hard to believe that it has been twenty years since I first read Governing the Commons. It came out in a series that Doug North was co-editing, and he gave me a copy. She will of course be remembered for her pioneering work on common property. I think that in the long run she will be remembered even more for her apprectiation of the diversity of institutions and her insistence upon the need for both rigorous theory and careful empirical analysis. Elinor Ostrom's approach to the analysis of institutional change was not easy, but it was fruitful. I might also note that her papers can used as a model for anyone seeking to write clearly about complicated issues.