The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009 Announced

Two people — Elinor Ostrom, Indiana University, and Oliver Willamson, UC Berkeley — win the The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009.

Go Berkeley!

A Digression on Corruption in Six Acts

ACT 1: A Course on Development

This summer for teaching an undergraduate course on economic development (Econ171) at Berkeley, I naturally considered the major factors that affect — and effect — economic growth and development of an economy. The major headings included growth models, energy, infrastructure, urbanization, education, agriculture, and one other topic which I will come to presently. It should come as no surprise that the government of India — being one that professes a sincere commitment to economic growth and development — actively intervenes in all of those areas. There are government departments and ministries at the central and state levels. Continue reading “A Digression on Corruption in Six Acts”

Nobel Peace Prize Committee Wins the Ig Nobel Prize

This morning the Nobel Peace Prize committee were woken up by a call from the Ig Nobel Prize committee saying, “Congratulations! you have won!” (The Ig Noble prize people have just gone out of business — they cannot parody the Nobel Prize any more.)

The Nobel Joke Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize has become the Nobel Joke Prize. And not a very funny joke either. Not funny at all when in 1973 they gave it to Kissinger, a man who should have been tried for war crimes. Or maybe it should be called the Nobel Politicized Prize. Seriously, there’s something rotten in this sort of shameless pandering. Timeonline.co.uk calls it a “mockery of the Nobel peace prize” and writes, “Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. . . the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace. . . There is a further irony in offering a peace prize to a president whose principal preoccupation at the moment is when and how to expand the war in Afghanistan.”

What’s Destroying the US?

What’s destroying the US is most likely this: government grown so big that its insatiable appetite devours the society that created it. Watching the US go down “the road to serfdom,” to use that memorable phrase from Hayek, is scary because what destroys the US can hardly not be expected to destroy weaker countries. Here’s Dan Mitchell arguing forcefully the case for limited government.
Continue reading “What’s Destroying the US?”

Mother India

Will Durant (1885 – 1981) was an American historian, writer and philosopher. His most famous work is the 11-volume “The Story of Civilization”, published between 1935 and 1975. In a 1931 work, “The Case for India“, he had this to say about India.
Continue reading “Mother India”