Michael Munger
The Social Media Jam: Why Too Many Choices Leave Us Feeling Stuck
There’s a famous experiment involving jams. Not problems, and not what old people call music, but the third thing: sweetened and thickened fruit spreads. The experiment famously showed that at […]
Crop Insurance, NASCAR, and Seatbelts: Why The Safer We Get, The More Risks We Take
In his famously odd 1975 book, Platform for Change, the British business professor Stafford Beer made the following observation: So we follow our noses. Our noses are going to be […]
DAFT Decisions: Why Deficits Are Future Taxes
In 2009-10, I was invited to dozens of speaking opportunities, as well as lots of radio and television appearances, because of my association with the “Tea Party.” Though now increasingly […]
‘Fine, I’ll Bake Your Stupid Cake’ Free Association Fuels Free Enterprise
Flower Mound, Texas, is about thirty miles northwest of Dallas. It straddles two counties: Denton, in which Trump won 56 percent of the vote, and Tarrant, which was evenly split […]
Milei’s First Year: Liberty, Less Regulation, Low Inflation
There’s something happening here. What it is, ain’t exactly clear. Around the world, there is growing impatience with the orthodoxies and condescension of the progressive left. In the past two […]
Understanding Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century
In the past decade, the theoretical and empirical arguments of French economist Thomas Piketty have attracted widespread attention.
Want Progress? Lose the Spoon Jobs
Politicians want to create jobs, “good-paying union jobs,” in existing industries. But that’s not what markets do. The “destructive” part of creative destruction eliminates jobs in existing industries. In a […]
Alfred Marshall’s Scissors
“There is simply no necessary relationship between cost and price.” ~Michael Munger
Welfare is a Jealous Polygamist
“Benefits are contingent, and the contingencies — no jobs, no marriage — are detrimental to women long term, and disturbingly similar to the restrictions a polygamist would impose.” ~Michael Munger
What Americans Can Learn From Venezuela’s Crackdown on ‘Price Gougers’
“Ten years ago, Venezuela set out on a path to economic ruin and grave shortages of basic consumer goods, because of price controls on groceries and other products. Is the US really going to travel on the same road?” ~Michael Munger
