Product specifications and consumer stupidity
New research provides more evidence that people simply are not rational in choosing what they buy, a fundamental assumption of economics. I have previously discussed problems including consumers inability to understand many products.
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Patent on patenting others’ inventions
Halliburton (it would be) have patented an aspect of patent trolling: reverse engineering other people’s trade secrets using a patent, patenting the (former!) trade secret and then suing the original inventor. (more…)
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If this is the market working, what is failure?
Brain Caplan thinks markets work fine despite having to wait 19 years to be able to a product with a tiny marginal cost of production: i.e. he spent 19 years waiting on the supplier’s whims just to buy allowed to buy some music. (more…)
Why tax havens are fraudulent
I usually enjoy reading Economic Logic, but this post defending tax havens seems badly wrong headed to me. It misses the essentially fraudulent character of tax havens. (more…)
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Alan Sugar fails to understand education
Alan Sugar has called for “enterprise lessons” in schools. While a capitalist economy may benefit from there being some people like Alan Sugar, I see absolutely no evidence that we need more of them. (more…)
Beyond capitalism?
This blog post by an academic economist raises a question that I am convinced we can already see part of the answer to. Industries that have a negligible marginal cost of production (media, software, etc.) demand a different economic system. (more…)
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Northern Rock should have been allowed to fail
Willem Buiter is quite right to criticise the Bank of England’s bailout of Northern Rock. The message to bank directors and shareholders is quite clear: “take big risks, and if they go wrong the taxpayer will pay for your mistakes, if they work, you can keep the profit”. (more…)
Abolish planning laws; solve housing “crisis”
Imagine that the UK had enough housing that every single household occupied a detached or semi-detached house (two thirds of them in detached houses) and all the country’s 12 million currently occupied terraced houses, maisonettes and flats were empty. You might think that to provide so much housing we would need to “concrete over the countryside”, in fact we would need to switch just 2.5% of the UK’s land area to urban residential use. Switching much less would provide a more than adequate supply. (more…)
The end of academic publishing
It has been clear to many analysts (including myself) for years that publishers of academic journals were facing the slow death of their business. Despite the view of publishers and the more optimistic analysts that peer reviews journals were irreplaceable, the evidence continues to emerge for a slow, but certain, decline. (more…)
Fixed rates will not make housing affordable
I find it hard to believe that encouraging long term fixed interest mortgages, as the government plans to, will really make housing more affordable. Here is why: (more…)
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