Tag: The Business End
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Did the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act “Bend the Cost Curve” on Campaign Spending?
Apparently, it did! On Thursday, I produced a graph and some older papers in economics that made the case that there is a pretty clear trend in campaign spending that was completely unaffected by the 2002 BCRA. However, I’m a philosopher, not an econometrician, so I left off the most important part: comparing growth in…
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Democratic Facts and Norms: Testable Hypotheses about Citizens United
So I’ve just completed grading 55 papers on Citizens United v FEC, and though I’d kind of like to reflect on it a bit, I’m also finding that grading has totally exhausted my interest in the legal questions. (But seriously: the personhood question is a red herring!) Maybe later this week I’ll post the best arguments…
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The Commons: Restore or Build New?
Most discussions of the Commons assume that common-pool resources are supplied by nature, like the English fields that were available to locals for grazing, cultivation, and hay-cutting until the Inclosure Acts. However, it is equally possible to create new common pool resources for local control. Kojo Nnamdi spent an hour on his radio show yesterday…
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23 Things about Capitalism
In his new book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism, Ha-Joon Chang offers a progressive explanation for what Tyler Cowen calls “The Great Stagnation,” the slowing growth in public goods available for consumption or redistribution. Between his various jibes at a strawman version of the standard economic model, Chang offers a persuasive analysis…
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Marginal Revolutions on Democracy: The Game Show
I asked Tyler Cowen what he thought of the public policy game show idea. He posted my request for comments, and there has been some helpful stuff from his readers: Sandeep notes that Scott Adams already thought of it: As president, I would solve all the world’s problems by creating a reality TV show where…
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Hacking the Social: Can the Profession’s Misogyny be Shamed and Tamed?
John Protevi, Mark Lance, and Eric Schliesser have created a bit of a stir in the blogosphere with their call to shun sexually harrassing philosophy professors: We believe there are informal sanctions that could make a difference. The Feminist Philosophers blog recently suggested not inviting serial harassers to conferences. One could easily extend this to not inviting…