In his recent column for the FT, Tim Harford discusses the idea of Scroogenomics. The idea, conceived by economist Joel Waldfogel, proposes that Christmas be abolished. No, Waldfogel is not the Grinch made flesh, but rather an economist who has rather narrow views on gifts and gift valuation. Waldfogel argues that each year at Christmas the worldwide deadweight loss is approximately $25bn. The reason? If someone gives you a gift with a price of $50, you may value...

I finally got around to reading Fred Halliday's article at OpenDemocracy 'What Was Communism?' I found it quite edifying, from the little things I appreciate, such as expanding my vocabulary (I did not know, or do not recall looking up previously, that 'aporia' was the Greek for impasse, specifically in the case of understanding potentially divergent or ambiguous meaning), to larger and more significant contributions such as finding a worthy critique and commentary...

Last Wednesday evening I attended a lecture by Will Hutton at the LSE titled 'Them and Us: How Capitalism without Fairness is Capitalism without a Future' [podcast]. Though some did not like it, I appreciated the talk, but I got the sense that it was, as Hutton said at the outset, the first time he was discussing in public the topics he intends to put into his next book and he was therefore not as structured nor as well-articulated as I expect him to be once he has...

Richard Dowden's recent Times article is entertaining and contains some truth.I found the following paragraph particularly amusing though disturbing:There is a widespread perception that saintly Britain had adopted this poor little girl called Africa and was busy saving her from hunger, war, disease and poverty. Suddenly big, greedy China, flashing huge deals and cheap goods, has seduced the girl and is leading her astray, even raping her. And to make it worse for...

I am late to this party, many apologies.  The most recent Carnival of the Africans, the 12th, was hosted by Mike Meadon over at Ionian Enchantment.  One of my recent posts on risk aversion is in the carnival, so take a look at it if you haven't read it yet (and I promise more are coming, I am simply working quite hard on a paper at the moment which prevents regular blogging for some reason, not all of us are Tyler Cowen).  Other posts from the blog that...