Drug costs clearly will be an issue in 2004 election campaigns. Voters see high drug costs as a national problem. Candidates are responding. Many are quick to paint pharmaceutical companies as greedy villains, but most are unwilling to risk much…
Mercury policy is a heavy topic
The controversy about federal mercury standards embodies all of the features of most environmental disputes and demonstrates practical difficulties in implementing effective measures to protect health and the environment. Mercury is a heavy metal that can be harmful to humans.…
Beware curse of winners in politics
John Kerry seems well on his way to the Democratic nomination. It is time for him to start thinking about how to avoid the winner’s curse. Two petroleum engineers coined that term decades ago when they studied petroleum leases auctions…
Liability in limbo wastes resources
Where is Ronald Coase when the Minnesota Legislature needs his advice on rotting houses? Coase, a professor at the University of Chicago, won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1991. He doesn’t know diddly about water infiltration, but his ideas…