July 2007

“Tyler Cowen”:http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/07/is-economic-ine.html points to a very interesting new paper by Daron Acemoglu and his colleagues (PDF – it was “here”:http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/download_pdf.php?id=1510 this morning, but this link isn’t working for me any more; see “here”:http://www.isop.ucla.edu/cms/files/acemoglu_bautista_querubin_robinson.pdf for a slightly earlier version) on the relationship between political and economic inequality. Tyler’s gloss is that this provides general insights into the “meme” of whether economic inequality is bad for growth, and concludes that “at least from that data set, the real problem seems to be rent-seeking behavior through the political process.” Thus, unless I misunderstand him (which is possible; he may just be blogging in shorthand), he is saying that this paper provides significant evidence suggesting that economic inequality isn’t the cause of slower economic growth; instead, political inequality and rent-seeking are at fault. [click to continue…]

The link in my previous post is thanks to a new blog: No Caption Needed. It is both a book and a blog by my colleague Bob Hariman at Northwestern and his collaborator John Louis Lucaites at Indiana. This undertaking is “dedicated to discussion of the role that photojournalism and other visual practices play in a vital democratic society. No caption needed, but many are provided. . . .” The blog just started recently, but already offers all sorts of interesting images and commentary.

Wow.

Try it here.

I should probably add this:

(This isn’t breaking news so we may have covered it earlier, but I don’t recall seeing it here.)

This morning, “Orin Kerr noted”:http://volokh.com/posts/1183395435.shtml that a three-judge panel had declined delay jail time for Scooter Libby. In an early “comment”:http://volokh.com/posts/1183395435.shtml#237628 on the thread, I said:

bq. Now we’ll see whether Libby has enough leverage to get a pardon before he goes to jail, or whether he’ll have to wait. Seeing as Bush’s ratings are permanently in the toilet, and he probably doesn’t think Libby didn’t anything wrong anyway, a pardon might well be forthcoming.

And as things turned out this afternoon, “it certainly didn’t take long to come forth.”:http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-CIA-Leak-Trial.html?hp Bush commuted Libby’s sentence. (Not a pardon, so we still get to call him a convicted criminal — at least till January 2009, when I imagine a full pardon will be dispensed. But the bottom line is, no jail time for Scooter.) Well done good and faithful servant, I suppose.