Michael Munger
His degrees are from Davidson College, Washingon University in St. Louis, and Washington University.
Munger’s research interests include regulation, political institutions, and political economy.
Books by Michael Munger
Articles
Taxation as Social Justice
“The goal is not to raise revenue so we can support the poor; instead, the US is pursuing the simpler goal of eliminating private concentrations of wealth.” ~Michael Munger
State Development Incentives: Taxes, Investment, and Tullock Auctions
“State ‘incentive’ packages do more than pay companies the difference in costs. Politicians have every reason to pay up to, and beyond, the entire economic benefit to the state, because their calculus counts costs as benefits.” ~ Michael Munger
State Development Incentives: The Only Solution is Not to Play
“The incentives of politicians and the goals of citizens can diverge, and nowhere is that divergence more obvious than in the case of targeted, private benefits to specific corporations paid for at public expense.” ~ Michael Munger
The Ludwig von Mises: Catallactic Converter
” An emergent system of division of labor based on impersonal commercial exchange, then, can substitute for benevolence.” ~ Michael Munger
The New (Old) Threat of “Runaway Bureaucracy”
“The notion of ‘independent’ agencies was a holdover conceit of the Progressive era—the FTC was founded in 1914—based on the idea that citizens were faced with large, concentrated forces they had no hope of dealing with, but which could be managed with the seraphic wisdom of benevolent experts.” ~ Michael Munger
Economics is Not Easy
” Since everyone looks to prices for accurate information about relative scarcity, having prices that are being inflated artificially is misleading, and results in multiple different economic actors all trying to expand at once.” ~ Michael Munger
Adam Smith Can Save Your Golf Game
“Golf is a great way to learn to do things for yourself. Even when you’re playing with other people, you’re playing only against yourself, keeping your own score and holding yourself accountable to a set of rules that it is your own responsibility to internalize.” ~ Michael Munger
Adam Smith Discovered (and Solved!) the Trolley Problem
“Smith makes a claim about human sentiments that seems monstrous, but which is perfectly plausible: we focus mostly on ourselves.” ~ Michael Munger
I See Dead Policies
“Firms can do anything they want. Just as long as they don’t charge a price that’s more than consumers think they should have to pay, the same as competitors, or less than other firms can match.” ~ Michael Munger
To Consumers, All Costs are Transaction Costs
“Remember, transaction costs are triangulation, transfer, and trust.” ~ Michael Munger
