Mark Thornton returns to the podcast to discuss his new book The Skyscraper Curse (available digitally for free). The book discusses the connection between record-setting skyscrapers and economic recessions. Here’s an excerpt from the book’s introduction:
The Skyscraper Index expresses the strange relationship between the building of the world’s tallest skyscraper and the onset of a major economic crisis. This relationship only came to light in 1999 when research analyst Andrew Lawrence published a report noting the odd connection between record-height buildings and noteworthy economic crises — that is, the skyscraper curse, a relationship that dated back nearly a century. Without a theory to support it, journalists largely dismissed Lawrence’s report as the fun story of the day.
Mark relates these skyscrapers to the Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT). He shows how record-setting skyscrapers and recessions can be caused by a common factor: excessively cheap credit. We discuss this theory in the interview.
Many economists have analyzed the efficiency of a volunteered army relative to a conscripted army. However, they have rarely studied the working of real-world alternative, market-based, military institutions where military obligations are traded among the citizens. This paper fills this gap by studying the rise and fall of the Remplacement Militaire in 18th and 19th century France. This system endured for more than three-quarters of a century until the French government progressively moved toward universal conscription after 1872. We explain why, as the proportion of men drafted increased, the State systematically restricted the trade of military obligations.
Today’s guest is Mikayla Novak (Twitter, SSRN) of the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub at RMIT University. Her work focuses on some innovative new and potential uses for blockchain technology.
As we all know at this point, the first use of blockchain technology was to create decentralized digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. But a blockchain is a much more general technology than this: it is a decentralized ledger that is resistant to tampering by any one individual. As such, it is a technical innovation that can allow us to coordinate activities that a lack of trust may have prevented otherwise.
Mikayla discusses institutional cryptoeconomics, an emerging field of research centered on the ways blockchain technology can improve both private and public institutions.
I’ve had my ReMarkable tablet for over a year now and I can’t imagine life without it. I am constantly carrying it with me, pulling it out to jot down notes during meetings, or to read PDFs on the SkyTrain, or to sketch out ideas for one of my creative projects. I start many of my days by jotting down a to-do list on my ReMarkable. It has taken the place of the many disorganized notebooks and sheets of printer paper that were constantly cluttering up my life in The Before Time Continue reading Why my ReMarkable Tablet is my Favourite Device→
Today’s guest is Martin Gurri (Twitter, blog), author of The Revolt of the Public. We discuss his book, which deals with the impact of information technology on political trends and populism.
In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, “Martin Gurri saw it coming.” Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age—government, political parties, the media. The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere, have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. Originally published in 2014, this updated edition of The Revolt of the Public includes an extensive analysis of Donald Trump’s improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral triumphs of “Brexit” and concludes with a speculative look forward, pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation of the democratic process, and whether new organizing principles, adapted to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence.
Today on the podcast, Ash Navabi returns to discuss his recent work on housing and rent control. Ash published an opinion piece entitled “Why low-income earners should actually welcome Ontario’s reversal on rent control.” In that article, Ash pushes back on the kneejerk reaction to the Ontario government’s reversal of its rent control policy on new units:
There’s no question that there are problems with affordability and livability in certain areas of Ontario, but implementing rigid rent control measures is not the way to fix them.
Economists agree: rent control reduces both the quantity and quality of housing available. In a 1988 survey of 443 Canadian economists, fully 95 per cent agreed (in full or with some provisos) with that statement. A more recent survey of 40 economists (including several Nobel laureates) yielded a similar result: only one respondent believed that rent control increased quantity and quality of the housing supply.
The reason there is near unanimity on this question is simple: there is ample theory and data in support of the answer. The theory is simple enough. A maximum price policy (which is what rent control is) has two contradictory effects — namely, it increases the quantity demanded for the good, while also decreasing the quantity supplied. In other words, it creates a shortage.
We discuss the policy change that prompted the article, and the backlash the article itself generated, as well as many things related to housing policy.
The voluminous literature on minimum wages offers little consensus on the extent to which a wage floor impacts employment. For both theoretical and econometric reasons, we argue that the effect of the minimum wage should be more apparent in new employment growth than in employment levels. In addition, we conduct a simulation showing that the common practice of including state-specific time trends will attenuate the measured effects of the minimum wage on employment if the true effect is in fact on the rate of job growth. Using three separate state panels of administrative employment data, we find that the minimum wage reduces net job growth, primarily through its effect on job creation by expanding establishments. These effects are most pronounced for younger workers and in industries with a higher proportion of low-wage workers.
During the U.S. Civil War, the Confederate Congress adopted three currency reforms that were intended to reduce the quantity of Treasury notes in circulation by inducing the money-holding public to exchange their notes for long-term bonds. In this paper, we examine the political factors that influenced the adoption of the reforms and their effect on the flow of seigniorage – revenue that the government derived by using the newly-printed Treasury notes to purchase the goods and services it required. We argue that the bifurcation of the Confederate Congress into two groups – those legislators that represented the Confederacy’s interior and those from areas no longer under Confederate control – contributed to the adoption of the reforms. Our findings indicate that representing an area outside of the rebel government’s control increased the likelihood that a legislator would support efforts to reform the currency by over 90 percent. In addition, our results indicate that the rate of monetary expansion in the South was below that which would have maximized the revenue from seigniorage. We find that the reforms reduced the flow of seigniorage by approximately 57 percent, depriving the Confederate government of much-needed revenue.
Today’s guest is Bob Murphy of Texas Tech University. We discuss his work on climate change and the social cost of carbon.
Bob started working on issues related to climate change when he began working with the Institute for Energy Research. We discuss the implications of the Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) used to evaluate the impact of climate change, the pivotal role played by discount rates in evaluating any kind of climate policy, the pitfalls of carbon taxation, and the opportunities presented by geo-engineering technologies. Continue reading Climate Change, Carbon Taxes, and Geo-Engineering with Bob Murphy→
