My colleague John Baden has long argued that economics is best understood as a branch of evolutionary biology. Like biological systems, economic life evolves as people and organizations learn, respond, and innovate. Markets, like DNA-driven organisms, are highly efficient information-processing systems. The realization that prices transmit and process information was a great insight of the […]
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Animals and Christmas go together. Sheep around the manger, turkey or Hutterite goose for dinner. My message builds upon holiday trips to my grandfather Baden’s farm and the comments of a friend, Bob Cindrich, a federal judge in Pittsburgh. They would agree on many important things including treatment of animals. My family’s heritage in America […]
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The Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend my family and I awoke to four inches of sewage in our basement. While we have many close fiends, we didn’t call them for help. No doubt some would have interrupted their plans and come over. But we didn’t want to impose this big, unpleasant job on their Thanksgiving plans. […]
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The United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development concluded last month in Johannesburg, South Africa. Real progress was made in debunking a recurring and fundamental error. Here’s the error: Most environmental problems are due to modernization and affluence. In fact, across time and cultures, technological advances and economic growth have proved the only sure path […]
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Dear President Bush: Our industry is suffering from unfair competition from a foreign rival. His productivity is far superior and his labor costs much lower than ours. As a result, he is flooding the U.S. market with goods at very low prices. If you don’t take action, he’ll soon attract all our customers, our sales […]
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There’s general consensus in the scientific community that global average temperatures are rising. It’s also generally agreed that increased carbon dioxide is a major factor. However, there’s still a great deal of uncertainty about the amount of warming and its expected ecological and economic effects. Because of CO2’s prominent role in warming (i.e., it remains […]
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Social movements, like ecosystems, evolve. Although many challenges remain, there is little doubt that Americans have changed the way they think about the environment. In some cases, the results are dramatic. For example, in the 1960s the U.S. Navy occasionally used whales for target practice. A quarter century later, the Navy spent over a million […]
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PBS recently aired a fascinating documentary, “The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy.” Part of the series focused on the sorry economic performance of countries in the developing world. Instead of blaming the usual suspects, e.g., colonialism and insufficient foreign aid, the series explored more fundamental and subtle barriers to progress. Economic progress […]
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Earth Day’s slogan, “Think globally, act locally,” has two implications, one physical, one mental. The easy physical stuff may ease guilt and give a sense of superiority, e.g., planting a tree, riding a bike to work or buying organic food. These are largely symbolic acts that make little difference unless they presage massive behavioral shifts. […]
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A man works in a Gary, Indiana steel factory. His high school son contemplates his future. The factory may close due to competition from cheaper imports. If so, jobs will be lost and people hurt. Should we let the factory go under or protect it with tariffs or quotas? The answer doesn’t come from tallying […]
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