Law and economics has done well for some straightforward reasons. Most of all, law schools have become more research-oriented over the last twenty years. Publication is more important and word-of-mouth about the quality of publication is more important. Law and economics, which draws so much of its method from economics, has been ideally positioned to benefit from this trend, albeit by a kind of historical accident. [click to continue…]
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tcowen
“Political history in the advanced industrial world has indeed ended, argues this pioneering study, but the winner has been social democracy…”
So runs the opening blurb on Sheri Berman’s The Primary of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century. Most of the book is a well-researched account of the history and subtlety of social democratic thought, but I wish to consider the broader framing of the argument. In the last chapter the author returns to her apparent view that social democracy is fundamentally a solution to the problem of politics and it will remain relevant, indeed dominant, throughout the twenty-first century. [click to continue…]
Economists should be forward rather than backward-looking, so I will consider Steve’s new paper — "Measuring the Impact of Crack Cocaine," co-authored with Roland Fryer, Paul Heaton, and Kevin M. Murphy.