Tag: GDP

  • Is more illegal immigration the best we can do?

    Will Wilkinson on Bryan Caplan’s (false?) dilemma: Bryan Caplan lays down a challenge to liberaltarians: From what philosophic point of view is “maximizing growth + lots of redistribution + the immigration restrictions lots of domestic redistribution naturally encourage” better than “maximizing growth + no redistribution + free immigration”?  Whether you’re concern for the poor is Rawlsian,…

  • Conceptual and Practical Obstacles to Futarchy

    In his comments on my post last week, Robin Hanson asked about the conceptual work still needed to advance the cause of prediction markets as tools for governance.

  • Hard Choices

    Steven Maloney asked his students to stabilize the budget using the CRFB’s simulator. Some couldn’t do it without making draconian choices that were particularly painful for seniors, or undoing the President’s decisions to preserve troop levels in Afghanistan and extending the Bush-era tax cuts. Some wouldn’t do it: That students would hand in deficits of…

  • How Taxation Effects Income Share (Not Much)

    Last week, Greg Mankiw posted this graph without comment: I thought there was something weird about the graph, and it’s been nagging at me. For one thing, it compares the bottom four quintiles to the top 5 percent of Americans. For another, it ignores non-federal taxation. (State and local taxes are more difficult to calculate,…

  • Cloning isn’t about Genetic Identity: More on Procreation

    Ever since I wrote negatively about the justice of procreation, I’ve been hoping that someone would come along and take the positive position. It’s the kind of argument about which one doesn’t quite want to be right. Sadly, there’ve been no takers. However, there’s recently been a spate of discussions on a more narrow topic…