Christmas, the holiday celebrating the birth of Christ, is indeed a joyous time. Ironically, it began as an exercise in political extortion. The Roman rulers of the time are best understood as sedentary bandits. They provided order and some security from roving bandits in exchange for taxes levied and collected. A census was required to […]

From The New York Times For the past few years, there has been a strange motif running through my social life. I’d go out with some writers, and they’d start gushing about someone named Erica Brown. “She has an inner light,” one of them once said. I’d be out with my wife and some of […]

Here is Goodman’s Law for Efficient Purchasing: There is no such thing as a smart formula. A recent news articlereported Medicare paying $800 to rent a wheelchair that could have been purchased outright for $350. I sometimes wonder if health economists actually understand how other markets work. Let’s try a thought experiment. Suppose you ran […]

I find a persistent myth among many of those who consider themselves well informed about economics. Specifically, many believe that governmental agencies are by their nature inefficient, unresponsive, officious, and insensitive to citizens’ legitimate demands and expectations. The U.S. Postal Service and state driver’s license bureaus are standard examples. This criticism is silly and often […]

I used to enjoy Sunday morning TV interview shows. Important government and political leaders would take partisan stands, but sometimes struggle to avoid the implications of intelligent and pointed questions. But those days are gone. Now, everyone who appears on TV interview shows seems to have taken the standard course in media training. Novices are […]