Potpourri

by Levi Russell

Here's a collection of articles I've read over the last week or so.

David Henderson on Thoma on potential changes to banking regulation.

Economist Allan Meltzer recently passed away. Here and here are two commentaries on his work.

A major contribution of another recently-deceased and well-known economist William Baumol is discussed here.

Don Boudreaux has a fantastic post on the importance of Econ 101. Here's a short excerpt:

To put the point a bit differently, ECON 101 instills the good habit of looking past stage 1, which is the stage at which most non-economists stop their investigations of economic consequences.  ECON 101 prompts those who grasp it to look also to stages 2, 3, and 4.  More-advanced economics courses – all the way to ECON 999 – teach that in theory there is also the possibility of stages 5, 6, 7, …. n.  Awareness of these theoretical possibilities is, of course, useful.  But awareness of stages 5, 6, 7, … n is either meaningless or, worse, practically dangerous without also an awareness of stages 2, 3, and 4.  And nearly all economic ignorance in the real world is simple unawareness of stages 2, 3, and 4.  (It’s also mistaken to conclude – as Kwak concludes – that awareness of stages 5, 6, 7, …. n regularly nullifies policy conclusions drawn from awareness of stages 1 through 4.)

Here's a great piece at Cato on the Net Neutrality issue.

Economics blogger Jim Rose corrects Noah Smith's oft-repeated claim that the economics profession was, until recently, dominated by right-wingers and libertarians.