Laws

Cyberwar is very much in the news these days. It is tempting to try to understand the economics of such an activity, if only qualitatively. What effort is required? What can such attacks accomplish? What does this say, if anything,about the likelihood of cyberwar?

Debate about the pension crises has centered on certain questions such as: Are greedy government workers bankrupting states? Arepension-slashing politicians backed by big money saving the day? Or do the budget problems of state and localgovernments have more to do with wasteful corporate subsidies than pensions? What are the real policy solutions to the pressures placed on pensions?”

Five years after the end of the Great Recession, corporate profits are high and the stock market is booming. Yet most Americans are not sharing in the apparent prosperity.

This article studies the reasons for the under-investment in research vs. development in the decentralized equilibrium and argues that this bias provides a micro-foundation for the government direct involvement in conducting applied research rather than just financing it.

Economists discussing the problem of radical uncertainty commonly invoke Frank Knight’s classic definition in Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, but only rarely venture to explore the broader contours of his argument.

We discuss recent work on bounded rationality and learning in relation to Soros’ principle of reflexivity and stress the empirical importance of non-rational, almost self-fulfilling equilibria in positive feedback systems.

The fall of 2008 was scary. For most people, the aftermath of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy resembled a major earthquake with strong aftershocks. Official narratives have promoted the image of the crisis as a rare, unpreventable and unforeseen natural disaster, the “100-year flood.” Policymakers emphasize the extraordinary measures they have taken to prevent the system from collapsing and to support recovery since.

Innovation, the commercialization of invention, is both desirable and necessary for growth and higher living standards in modern economies. Innovation’s contribution to the economy is being measured increasingly more precisely, and its contribution has been assessed aseconomically important and growing.

Since the outbreak of the Greek debt crisis at the end of 2009, the Eurozone finds itself in an unprecedented debt crisis.

Can China lead the way on innovation?

Over and over again, US government policies designed to transfer and create wealth and economic opportunity were restricted to whites by design.

Big Tech companies are swallowing up nascent competitors. Why aren’t regulators paying attention?

The state has long used law to back private money—with dire consequences, then and now

“Facebook is undermining our country, our democracy.”

The Chicago School’s weakening of antitrust law hurt the economy