The proposed cuts in metro-area bus service announced Monday are bad news, but they do illustrate several economic principles. One can only hope that sound economic analysis may identify measures to cushion the harm from reduced service. I should acknowledge…
Overzealous rules smack of mercantilism
Though Louis XIV’s most capable minister died 422 years ago, Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s spirit lives on. Under Colbert’s direction, the economic system known as mercantilism reached its high point. Other nations admire Colbert’s policies, but history demonstrated that mercantilism was a…
Economists back toll lanes
The Minnesota Department of Transportation is set to try an idea that economists have advocated for years: congestion pricing. Whether it will make traffic flow more efficiently on Interstate 394 is still to be proved. Not everyone understands the idea…
Simple ideas are sometimes simply wrong
Simple explanations of complicated phenomena are attractive but often dangerous. A guest on a late-night interview show drove that home for me recently. Jim Rogers, a successful investor and foreign exchange speculator, expounded on global economic conditions and plugged his…