Price Controls on Labor
Hans Sennholz writes that few employers, if any, knowingly buy labor that costs more than it produces. Yet, economists who dare to point to the failure of price controls on labor are vilified.
Patent Trolls and Empirical Thinking
Patent trolls are under increasing attack of late—patent owners who don’t actually develop or manufacture the product covered by their patents, but just sue other companies who do make it.
Because drug price competition is bad, mmmkay???
Sez Senator Charles Schumer. The pharmaceutical company Merck is facing generic competition for its cholesterol-lowering drug Zocor. In response, Merck is cutting deals with insurance companies to offer lower copays on name-brand Zocor than the generic equivalent (it’s true that a copay is not the actual price of the drug, but it is the price signal that people with insurance are concerned with. I’m not sure how this affects the price of the drug without insurance).
Woops, sorry, Blackberry!
I’ve recently bemoaned the damage done to RIM, the manufacturer of the Blackberry, by the US patent system. RIM eventually had to settle for over $600M with NTP, even though the patents it was accused of violating were being re-examined in the US Patent Office and might be overturned. Nevertheless, the very real threat of an injunction by the court that would have shut down RIM’s business—even if only for a few months, until the patents might have been invalidated by the PTO—would have ruined RIM.
More on Net Neutrality
My article on government and the internet provoked a firestorm of controversy on “net neutrality,” which many libertarian commentators seem to favor. Those new to the debate may wish to consult this short article in The Economist’s Voice by Robert Hahn and Scott Wallsten, which provides a useful overview. Hahn and Wallsten argue that net neutrality, while lacking a precise definition, is ultimately “a friendly-sounding name for price regulation.”
The Neglect of Bastiat’s School by English-speaking Economists
A Conspiracy of Silence on The French Liberal School
There exists today in Anglo-American economics a veritable “conspiracy of silence” regarding the works and achievements of the French Liberal School of Economics.
Higgs on Government Programs and Economic Growth
New EH.Net book review by Bob Higgs:
Education: Free and Compulsory
Origins of the Welfare State in America
Introduction
Standard theory views government as functional: a social need arises, and government, semi-automatically, springs up to fill that need. The analogy rests on the market economy: demand gives rise to supply (e.g., a demand for cream cheese will result in a supply of cream cheese on the market). But surely it is strained to say that, in the same way, a demand for postal services will spontaneously give rise to a government monopoly Post Office, outlawing its competition and giving us ever-poorer service for ever-higher prices.
