Category: Other blogs
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Mark D. White As I noted earlier, on December 6 and 7 the blog Truth on the Market hosted "Free to Choose?", an online symposium on behavioral law and economics, the contents of which appear below the fold, followed by an excerpt from Josh Wright's introductory comment.
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Mark D. White Not long ago, in my chapter for Essays on Philosophy, Politics & Economics: Integration & Common Research Projects, edited by Christi Favor, Gerald Gaus, and Julian Lamont, I wrote the following as a cautionary tale regarding the political implications of "libertarian paternalism" (or "nudges"): Suppose the members of a local election board,…
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Mark D. White Following up on Jonathan's post on rules, norms, and contracts from July, I just came across (thanks to ContractsProf Blog) a paper titled "Strategic Default: The Popularization of a Debate Among Contract Scholars" by Meredith R. Miller of Touro College – Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, forthcoming in Cornell Real Estate Journal. I have…
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Mark D. White I usually try to ignore Paul Krugman, but sometimes I can't. (Sorry.) Thanks to Steve Horwitz (here and here), I lit upon Krugman's September 28 New York Times blog post, "Economics Is Not a Morality Play," in which he writes: The market economy is a system for organizing activity — a pretty good…
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Mark D. White The idea for this post (as well as the title) comes from Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution, who writes: Chris, a loyal MR reader, asks: I'd like to see you list the top 10 books which have influenced your view of the world. I'll go with the "gut list," rather than the…
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Mark D. White I don't know how I missed this article, but thanks to the great folks at Coordination Problem and Cafe Hayek, I saw it, and it confirms so much of what I tell my students, especially in macro, as well as my intuitions regarding the proper role of economics. The piece is Russ Robert's "Is the Dismal…
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Mark D. White Thanks to Orly Lobel at Prawfsblawg for pointing out this New York Times Magazine piece on new ideas. The one he points out in particular involves "ethical robots" (scroll down in the piece a few items), which will be programmed with basic ethical tenets and will perform more reliably (according to this programming) on…
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Mark D. White Prawfsblawg featured a post today by David Schleicher (nspired by this NYT article) on the topic of Pandora, the online music service that suggests new selections based on the musical characteristics (tempo, style, etc.) of your current musical preferences. Schleicher compares this to a blind taste test for coffee, and argues that both…
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Mark D. White Just as Frans de Waal's new book The Age of Empathy comes out (WSJ review here), Robin Hanson (at Overcoming Bias) posts (skeptically, I might add) that new studies show our natural sociality to be limited, especially when it concerns specific persons rather than people in the aggregate. Hansen quotes from a 2007…
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Mark D. White At the Austrian Economists blog, Steve Horwitz has a fascinating post on "Economists, Empathy, and Unerased Boards," which has generated quite a bit of commentary, much of it very revealing. Well worth a look!
Mark D. White 