There Is No Good Reason to . . .

"There is no good reason to" precedes all kinds of arguments for banning things I could well have good reason to want.

Eric Crampton, comment on his own post "Dog days of summer... this time with data"

In Defense/Praise of Income Inequality

I [...] worry that eliminating status competition on the income margin pushes it to less productive margins. If we’re hard wired to be status seeking, isn’t it generally a good thing that that’s channeled towards producing economic value for others rather than towards military exploits, feats of warmaking valor, potlach, or other more destructive forms?

Eric Crampton (quoted here)

The Public Choice Lesson: Let's Give up Altogether

If public choice says we need to change the incentives to change political outcomes, why would we expect those who profit by current arrangements not to fight against such changes?

Eric Crampton, "Folk Activism"

The Case for Markets

The case for markets never lay in their perfection but rather in the relative imperfection of alternatives. I'm teaching intermediate micro this semester. We go through the welfare theorems, and they're beautiful. We know that they don't apply generally. However, it's really hard to improve on the imperfection of markets. Both markets and policies are imperfect instruments. Markets fail relative to blackboards, but regulatory solutions often fail relative to the real world market alternative.

Eric Crampton, "The Case for Markets"