Ed Glaeser makes an important point about the current recession over at Economix: it is important to recognize that in this recession, just as in every other recorded downturn, unemployment is overwhelmingly concentrated among those who started with less. … The overall unemployment rate for the more educated is only 4.3 percent. Individuals with a […]
Eric Crampton reports a study on the reasons for smoking. It finds that smokers place a lower value on the cost of getting a major lung disease than non-smokers. I really like to see these sorts of studies because differences in preferences are almost impossible to show without them. It’s easy to SAY that smokers […]
Megan McArdle says that old people laid off in the recession find it hard to get work because …older workers have more skills. In general, more skills is a good thing. But in an increasingly specialized society, those skills are increasingly specific,. The more skills you have, the fewer jobs there are that match them. […]
After the sadness of California passing Proposition 8 banning gay marriage last year, there have been a couple of recent victories for civil rights campaigners in Vermont and Iowa. That motivated Nate Silver to work the numbers and ask when we might expect the rest of the US to reject a ban on gay marriage. […]
I like the preface to Bryan Caplan’s new book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. He says: I doubt that “They’ll help me out when I’m old,” has ever been a good reason to have kids. Love tends to run downhill; as an old saying ruefully observes, “One parent can care for five children, but […]
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. — Winston Churchill. So, really, it’s all about value judgments.