The Bowtie Economist's Daily Dose of 70-Word Wisdom


Regulation Bites

10/06/2011

Pinellas County FL has announced it will stop putting fluoride in its water. A Commissioner called it “a social sort of program” to be avoided. This is nuts. Adding fluoride is one of the great public health achievements of the…

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Nobel Prize Prognostications

10/05/2011

With the Nobel in economics to be awarded next week, here’s my list of candidates: Bhagwati and Dixit for research in international trade, Barro and Romer for growth econ, Hart for transactional econ, Nordhaus and Weitzman for environmental econ, Fama…

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Energy Sprawl

10/04/2011

While energy sources like the sun and wind are free, converting them into large quantities of electricity requires lots of lands. The math is easy. To get 1,000 megawatts of solar capacity in the Mojave desert your need 15 sq…

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Measuring Teacher Quality, Badly!

10/03/2011

Public school teacher effectiveness and thus salary, promotion, assignment and tenure decisions are based on certification, advanced degrees, and years of experience. Regrettable there is almost no relationship between those variables and teacher classroom performance with the slight exception of…

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Baked by Regulation

09/30/2011

The Friday File: The latest Easy Bake Oven comes with a new instruction: no light bulb needed! Consider it an unintended consequence of the government’s move to phase out incandescent bulbs. Designers of the EBO adapted and the ovens now…

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Flight of (Expensive) Fancy

09/29/2011

Starting 1/1/12 Europe will impose a cap-and-trade system on airlines to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Airlines will initially get free permits to cover 85% of their existing carbon-dioxide emissions but will have to buy any additional permits. While the…

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Merchants of Death

09/28/2011

The DE Supreme Court has ruled that insurance companies can challenge the legitimacy of life insurance policies that have changed hands. This has dampened enthusiasm of investors who buy policies from people in order to collect the proceeds when the…

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Government Failure

09/27/2011

Government action is touted as a solution to “market failures” like imposing a tax on polluters to make them aware of the costs they impose on those who inhale their fumes. But, the cure (government intervention) may be worse than…

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Show me the Money

09/26/2011

While tough mortgage-lending standards are hurting housing, so is a lack of wealth. A census report shows 33% of Hispanics have zero or negative net worth in ‘09 up from 23% in ’05. For blacks the portion rose to 35%…

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Artful Heist

09/23/2011

The Friday file: Because Rembrandt was an economical painter, his works tend to be small and portable. And, because his works sell for tens of millions, Rembrandt’s are stolen more often than any other artist save Picasso. About 80 of…

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