Robert Hahn, Peter Passell « regulation2point0

Starve Thy Neighbor

September 3rd, 2010

Nice post by Harvard’s Jeff Frankel on the little-followed but surprisingly important issue of export control on food crops. The United States hasn’t tried to contain food prices by embargoing exports since Richard Nixon briefly stopped foreign sales of soybeans and set in motion the rise …

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Climate Correction

September 1st, 2010

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, created by the UN back in 1988 to investigate the then-startling hypothesis that CO2 emissions could fry the planet, is the most comprehensive source of science on the subject. But there are plenty of folks (including some climate change believers) who argue that IPCC …

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Yellow Peril

August 30th, 2010

If it never occurred to you that building codes were creatures of interest group lobbying, Joshua Davis’ tale of the waterless urinal in Wired.com will be an eye-opener. Seems that the new-fangled urinals take a lot less skilled labor to install. And by no coincidence, back in …

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Dueling Apps

August 25th, 2010

Climate change arguments may not be making much headway with a public that won’t – or simply can’t – pay attention to the really, really bad things global warming might do to the planet in the year 2050. But that’s not stopping activist scientists or their denier counterparts from trying …

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Tangled Web

August 24th, 2010

Ah, the glories of sugar politics… In case you missed it, the price of sugar in the US is up 30 percent in the last year. And, responding to heavy lobbying from commercial users of sucrose – mostly commercial bakeries and candy makers — the Department of Agriculture …

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What, Us Worry?

August 20th, 2010

“Deflation is a bigger threat than inflation,” concludes the headline for an excellent piece by economist Gavyn Davies in the Financial Times. Perhaps. But there should be two parts to an assessment of threats like this. First, estimate the probability of the event (e.g., deflation), and then estimate …

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E-Book Wars

August 19th, 2010

If you’re hooked (like us) on Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader, you’ve probably noticed that book prices have gone up a bit since Amazon caved into most publishers’ demands that the giant retailer work on commission – so called agency pricing – rather than setting its own prices. The publishers’ logic …

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Greasy Pole Economics

August 19th, 2010

Remember when Microsoft appeared to be on track to dominate our waking hours at work (Windows, Office) and at play (Xbox, Internet Explorer, MSN)? Seems like a quaint memory now — though, in the long-standing tradition of refighting the last war, as recently as December the European competition authority was …

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The Living Dead

August 18th, 2010

The New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin challenges the conventional wisdom that the ongoing survival of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the only folks out there buying mortgages, is costing the taxpayers money. In fact, Freddie and Fannie’s losses (which will total several hundred billion dollars) amount …

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The Mobile Majority

August 16th, 2010

Since the arrival of the Motorola DynaTAC in 1973 (weighing in at 2.2 pounds), cell phones have gone from bulky contraptions capable of only the most straightforward communications functions to gee-whiz devices that allow users to do anything from finding directions to the nearest sushi joint to viewing …

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regulation2point0

Starve Thy Neighbor

Climate Correction

Yellow Peril

Dueling Apps

Tangled Web

What, Us Worry?

E-Book Wars

Greasy Pole Economics

The Living Dead

The Mobile Majority

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