Do we have too much or too little pollution? Too many or too few people? Do we save too much or too little? Do we spend too much or too little on health care; or on cosmetics? Do we work too much or too little? Do we have too much or too little casual sex?
Rochester economist and professor Steven Landsburg explains how to apply economic logic to these questions.
Part 2 here.
And, they call economics the dismal science -
ReplyDeleteImagine that.
"And, they call economics the dismal science"...
ReplyDeleteIt will be for Landsburg if ends up with a venereal disease...
Nice talk but flawed. It assumes zero sum, where behavior tradeoffs are linear. For example it assumes that Promiscuous Pete will not change his behavior if Cautious Cal changes his. This is not substantiated in the talk. It may be a necessary simplification, but it is a simplification neverthless. This does not mean that moral hazard doesn't exist- it does. Only that the example is not a strong one.
ReplyDelete"Hey baby, make me one of your 2.25 for this year and we are gonna curb the transmission of AIDS."
ReplyDeleteWorks EVERYTIME
An old Onion article headline was:
ReplyDeleteChild Abuse; How much is too much?
It's all in how you say it.
EC