The Best Line on Economics and Science

LAST week, a Twitter conversation broke out among a few economists concerning whether any serious economists opposed a carbon tax. No, concluded the tweeters, but Tyler Cowen begged to differ. Mr Cowen writes that he personally favours a carbon tax but can imagine a number of principled reasons other economists might not.

LAST week, a Twitter conversation broke out among a few economists concerning whether any serious economists opposed a carbon tax. No, concluded the tweeters, but Tyler Cowen begged to differ. Mr Cowen writes that he personally favours a carbon tax but can imagine a number of principled reasons other economists might not.

According to Zeljka Buturovic and Dan Klein, people who self-identify as “progressive” have low levels of economic knowledge whereas those who self-identify as “libertarian” or “very conservative” rank very highly. For reasons suggested by Tyler Cowen, I think that conclusion is nonsense.

Intelligence Squared has held a series of debates in which they poll ayes and nayes before and after.  How should we expect opinion to change with such debates?  Let's assume that the debate teams are evenly matched (since any debate resolution can be rewritten in the affirmative or negative this seems a weak assumption).

Economist Tyler Cowen shares some thoughts on the Cyprus deal on his blog, and one line is dramatic but important:

Laura D'Andrea Tyson:

Tyler Cowen: Can we agree that…

|Peter Boettke| Tyler Cowen caused quite a stir with his e-book, The Great Stagnation.  In properly assessing his work it is important to state explicitly what his argument actually is.  Median real income has stagnated since 1980, and the reason is that the rate of technological advance has slowed.  Moreover, the technological advances that have taken place with such rapidity in recent history have improved well-being, but not in ways that are easily measured in real income statistics.