Category: Microeconomics
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What’s Wrong With Farmers Markets
New Jersey USA, where I live, is awash in seasonal farmers markets. What’s not to love about that? They support local agriculture, and we get fresh nutritious food right from the source. This is to tell you what’s not to love about that. In the typical case, a town gives market vendors weekly use of…
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Nuclear Power: The Missing Cost-Benefit Analysis
An influential new book A Bright Future says the world need lots more nuclear energy to slow the carbon emissions that cause climate change. Renewable energy sources are okay as far as they go, the authors argue, but so far can meet only a small fraction of our needs, especially in the developing world where…
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Why You Should Buy A Plug-In Hybrid Car (And What Automotive Writers Fail To Tell You About Them)
Please try this simple thought-experiment about a little car trip: Assume you have a gasoline-powered, non-hybrid automobile that gets an average 24 miles per gallon. (Metric values below for non-U.S. readers.) Walk out of your house in the morning, get in your car, and drive 4 miles to the gym. Stay there an hour. Then…
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How Would You Solve This?
What to do about a shortage of liquor licenses… or taxi licenses… New Jersey USA has a shortage of liquor licenses. Laws dating to the end of Prohibition limit the number of bars in each town. Even to serve wine in a restaurant, the owner must buy a scarce license from some other existing license…