Contrary to the confident‐sounding claims of experts in the media, economists cannot accurately predict the macroeconomy. Economists have an awful record at forecasting inflation, interest rates, gross domestic product, and other macro variables.
Category: Economics
The “Unseen Effects” of California’s New Minimum-Wage Law
“In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.”
Frederic Bastiat
The U.S. Economy and the Failure of Keynesian Thought
The Keynesian idea, adopted by the U.S. government and many other countries, that by artificially stimulating consumption in hard times you spur economic activity all around on a sustained basis has proved to be fallacious yet again. Donald Trump and Joe Biden stimulated the economy with a combined US$6 trillion. The result, except for a brief and exceptional recovery period, is that the economy has ceased showing robustness.
Reputation Works Better Than Regulation: Why Demand Should Determine Prices
As consumers, we must remember that in a market-based system, consumers determine what is of value, what is demanded, and what is consumed. To maintain such authority, we would be wise to use our wallets, rather than Washington cronies, to curtail costs.
Do Our Roads Have to be Built by Government?
What if we had left road construction to private enterprise? The road network that began with private toll roads would have continued to develop if governments hadn’t intervened. People would never have gotten hooked on the notion that driving should be “free.” The roads and bridges would have been better maintained under private ownership than under government control, with politicians often skimping on maintenance in favor of spending that does them more immediate political good.
Tracking Truckers
This rule represents another misguided attempt by the government to trade the public’s privacy rights in exchange for the endless quest for “safety.” In reality, this trade-off will likely impact the availability of consumer goods while having no corresponding positive impact on public safety. As always, trading privacy for safety points to a bitter exchange for American consumers.
Economic History Tells Us Something Important About Industrial Policy
Economists and more empirically minded social scientists in other disciplines viewed the claims of industrial policy efficacy with skepticism and suggested that Japan’s intervention in its economy tended to favor declining industries rather than growing ones.
The Malthusian Contradiction
Malthusians err in thinking that resources are limited and that the key to saving humanity is to limit our consumption of those resources by limiting our numbers. The truth is that it’s humans who create resources in the first place. When Malthusians point to explosive population growth, they think they are identifying a problem. They are actually identifying the solution.
D.C.’s ‘Green New Deal for Housing’ Is Doomed Before It Begins
Social housing supporters hope that the city can get city-owned, city-operated housing right with a new office, a more expansive mission, and different branding.
https://reason.com/2022/12/02/d-c-s-green-new-deal-for-housing-is-doomed-before-it-begins/