Posts in Economics
Words Worth Noting - June 23, 2021

In 1890 Swedish economist Knut Wicksell “argued that if governments ran deficits then citizens were not being clear information about the costs and benefits of programmes which they were being asked to support as voters… If much of the cost could be transferred to a subsequent generation, citizens would select more government expenditure than if they had to carry the true costs of the benefits they received. This commitment to a balanced budget was not as naïve or rigid as some modern commentators like to suggest.”

Roger Douglas Unfinished Business

Words Worth Noting - June 16, 2021

“Strong reciprocators are not altruists.... They’re rejecting lowball offers because the offers violate their individual sense of what a just exchange would be. But the effect is the same as if they loved humanity… Individually irrational acts, in other words, can produce a collectively rational outcome.”

James Surowiecki The Wisdom of Crowds [regarding experiments involving the “ultimatum game”]