Tag Archives: economics

The Amish Health Care System

I. Amish people spend only a fifth as much as you do on health care, and their health is fine. What can we learn from them? A reminder: the Amish are a German religious sect who immigrated to colonial America. … Continue reading

Financial Incentives Are Weaker Than Social Incentives But Very Important Anyway

NYT: Economic Incentives Don’t Always Do What We Want Them To (h/t MR). For the first time in history, the title actually understates the article, which argues that incentives can be surprisingly useless: Economists have somehow managed to hide in … Continue reading

Indian Economic Reform: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

From a recent Charter Cities Institute report: From India’s independence from the British Raj in 1947 to the early 1990s, the country’s economic policy was largely socialist. In the 1980s some early steps were taken to open the Indian economy … Continue reading

Squareallworthy On UBI Plans

I want to signal-boost Tumblr user squareallworthy‘s analysis of various UBI plans: 1. Jensen et al’s plan 2. Healy et al’s plan 3. Andrew Yang’s plan 4. Torry’s plan 5. Sheahen’s plan 6. Dolan’s plan 7. Stern and Murray’s plans … Continue reading

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Followup On The Baumol Effect: Thanks, O Baumol

Last week I reviewed Alex Tabarrok and Eric Helland’s Why Are The Prices So D*mn High?. On Marginal Revolution, Tabarrok wrote: SSC does have some lingering doubts and points to certain areas where the data isn’t clear and where we … Continue reading

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Book Review: Why Are The Prices So D*mn High?

Why have prices for services like health care and education risen so much over the past fifty years? When I looked into this in 2017, I couldn’t find a conclusive answer. Economists Alex Tabarrok and Eric Helland have written a … Continue reading

Buspirone Shortage In Healthcaristan SSR

(Epistemic status: Unsure on details. Some post-publication edits 5/1 to make this less strident.) I. There is a national shortage of buspirone. Buspirone is a 5HT-1 agonist used to control anxiety. Unlike most psychiatric drugs, it’s in a class of … Continue reading

1960: The Year The Singularity Was Cancelled

[Epistemic status: Very speculative, especially Parts 3 and 4. Like many good things, this post is based on a conversation with Paul Christiano; most of the good ideas are his, any errors are mine.] I. In the 1950s, an Austrian … Continue reading

Wage Stagnation: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

[Epistemic status: I am basing this on widely-accepted published research, but I can’t guarantee I’ve understood the research right or managed to emphasize/believe the right people. Some light editing to bring in important points people raised in the comments.] You … Continue reading

Highlights From The Comments On Piketty

Chris Stucchio recommended Matt Rognlie’s criticisms of Piketty (paper, summary, Voxsplainer). Rognlie starts by saying that Piketty didn’t correctly account for capital depreciation (ie capital losing value over time) in his calculations. This surprises me, because Piketty says he does … Continue reading