Reports of the death of the European Union are highly exaggerated. Yes, in the past week strong majorities in both France and the Netherlands voted to reject the proposed EU constitution. Whatever this means politically, it will have surprisingly little…
GOP finds governing is hard
Each time the pendulum swings in U.S. politics, the party that comes to power learns how much harder it is to make sound economic policy than to criticize that of the opposition. Consider the last century. From William McKinley’s election…
Cigarette tax has its roots in pragmatism
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s call for a big cigarette tax increase raises issues of why we tax tobacco and how high taxes should be. While economists can answer the first question, we can only make rough estimates about the second.…
Assumptions dangerous in war and economics
Staking a great deal on how you think someone else will react is dangerous. An old map I found this week reminded me of how that applies to war as well as to economic policy. It was a standard military…