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Marginal Utility Theory of Daylight Saving Time

posted to Agoraphilia on Sat 9th Mar 13

I just posted this on Facebook, and I thought I might as well post it here as well. This is the marginal utility theory of Daylight Saving Time. If you could, you would allocate your daylight according to marginal utility -- starting with the most valuable
Economics of the Undead: Call for Abstracts

posted to Agoraphilia on Fri 8th Mar 13

Anyone wondering what kind of projects have been keeping me from blogging lately? Well, here's one...Call for AbstractsEconomics of the Undead: Blood, Brains & BenjaminsGlen Whitman & James P. Dow, EditorsThe editors seek abstracts for essays exploring the
CFTC Targets Prediction Markets; Hits First Amendment

posted to Agoraphilia on Wed 12th Dec 12

Would you pay good money for accurate predictions about important events, such as election results or military campaigns? Not if the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has its way. It recently took enforcement action against overseas prediction

Transtemporal Economics

posted to Agoraphilia on Thu 13th Mar 08

Tyler Cowen considers the economics of time travel. Actually, he starts with the economics of interstellar travel, but if you take relativity seriously, its the same thing. Tyler is most interested in how time travel in the presence of time dilation would affect
Communist Paternalism

posted to Agoraphilia on Tue 22nd Apr 08

It's scary how many people could draw exactly the wrong conclusion from this:When the Soviet empire began to unravel in 1989, Cuba was hit with serious food and fuel shortages. From 1991 to 1995, people were getting only about 1800 calories a day and had to
To My Fellow Libertarian Voters

posted to Agoraphilia on Mon 5th Nov 12

I plan to vote on Tuesday, for the same reasons I enunciated eight years ago. Nevertheless, I respect the position of libertarians who choose not to vote on grounds of principle (the whole system is corrupt and I refuse to take part) or rational cost-benefit

Some Election-Day Links

posted to Cafe Hayek on Tue 6th Nov 12

Kurt Schuler, over at Free Banking, offers some gems. (HT W.E. Heasley)And another gem from Karl Hess, Jr. (HT Rod Long)Jim Epstein and ReasonTV brilliantly capture in 98 seconds some of the ill-consequences of believing that politicians can makes things all
Killjoys

posted to Offsetting Behaviour on Thu 8th Mar 12

Remember that survey of a baker's dozen young smokers that Otago healthists used as basis for recommending banning smoking outside of bars? The Otago Daily Times editorial page wonders, if costs to the health system are the reason for increasingly onerous
The Declining Hotness of Flight Attendants

posted to Megan McArdle on Thu 13th Oct 11

Glen Whitman asks why there are fewer startlingly beautiful flight attendants any more:For an economist, the most fascinating aspect of Pan Am is the highly attractive flight attendants -- or rather, stewardesses, since the show is set in the early 1960s. If