Broback's Blog

A favorite of mine from Fooled by Randomness: “It is a mistake to use, as journalists and some economists do, statistics without logic, but the reverse doses not hold: It is not a mistake to use logic without statistics.” I frequently see conclusions from those who lean on tortured data sets in order to reach […]

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Serious Economists universally agree that some goods are better allocated via markets and others are better managed by state distribution. The distinction generally has to do with the nature of the good being considered. These attributes include things like excludability and rivalry. Public goods are generally regarded as items where state allocation is best suited. […]

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The RAND Health Insurance Experiment is referenced in the academic literature as a “gold standard” study, and the main conclusion it reached aligned perfectly with what Econ 101 teaches us — when people have to pay for stuff, they buy (significantly) less of it. It also confirmed that “outcomes” were not worse for those poor […]

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Almost as if it was choreographed, it was only minutes after reading the passage below from the Economist that I discovered that the respected blog The Oil Drum was to be no more. “Scratch the surface of the planet and the chances that hydrocarbons will spew forth appear to grow by the day.” This reality […]

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My pal Steve reminded me of his thought-provoking post he made a while back asking the question “Why Hasn’t Europe Caught Up?” Gallup may have a partial answer in this report issued in 2007. The results echo what the class concluded in an Economics course I took years ago. The overarching topic was an evaluation […]

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Three charts.

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Efficiency is generally thought of the relationship between inputs and outputs. Economic efficiency is defined by Paul Heyne here. “To economists, efficiency is a relationship between ends and means. When we call a situation inefficient, we are claiming that we could achieve the desired ends with less means, or that the means employed could produce […]

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I recently added ABC’s This Week back to my Tivo since ABC took my veiled and tongue-in-cheek advice and jettisoned the talented but regrettably snooze-inducing Christiane Amanpour. (Great to have George S. back, but I’d love to see the awesome Jake Tapper in the host chair again.) Today’s episode featured a mildly bullying interchange between […]

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Economics is hard. I was sent this piece written by Philosophy major Matthew Yglesias yesterday. In it he attempts to emulate thinking like an economist, and signals in a way that the untutored will likely find impressive. Phrases like “regressive”, “subsidy” and even an “at the margin” are sprinkled in liberally. (Strangely — and very […]

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It appears that Obamacare is facing an uphill battle in the Supreme Court: LA Times: Supreme Court greets healthcare mandate with skepticism Chicago Sun Times: Justices’ queries could signal trouble for health-care law CBS News: Supreme Court majority skeptical on health care law Washington Post: Supreme Court expresses doubts on key constitutional issue in health-care […]

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