Basic, and sophisticated, economic ideas can show up in the most real-world of situations, such as the ongoing bickering over a police gun range in Maplewood. Indeed, the case involves insights that win Nobel prizes. And while this situation affects…
Drug, medical device patents always pose knotty problems
The recent outcry about the pricing of EpiPens reinforces what we already know: Monopolies, particularly those that produce highly needed items, can do harm, even evil. But people have long recognized that there can be such a thing as a…
Payment to Iran offers a window to history, economics
The brouhaha this month over the U.S. payment of $400 million plus interest to our enemy Iran over a long-forgotten defense contract offers lessons both in economics and history. It blew up in the second week in August, exactly 102…
Unintended effects of $15 minimum, mandatory sick leave are complex
Justice Louis Brandeis argued 84 years ago that a state can “serve as a laboratory, and try novel social and economic experiments.” That has been true for initiatives such as Oregon’s citizen panels for prioritizing medical treatments under Medicaid during…