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While Russian billionaires have been the focus of attention due to the ongoing fighting in Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions against Russian individuals and entities, their counterparts in the United States have accumulated an additional $1.7 trillion of net worth since the start of the pandemic two years ago. This marks an increase of 57 percent compared to March 2020 data from Forbes aggregated by U.S.-based organization Americans For Tax Fairness (ATF). As our chart shows, four of the...

from Lars Syll Although the expected utility theory is obviously both theoretically and descriptively inadequate, colleagues and microeconomics textbook writers all over the world gladly continue to use it, as though its deficiencies were unknown or unheard of. Daniel Kahneman writes — in Thinking, Fast and Slow — that expected utility theory is seriously flawed since it doesn’t take into consideration the basic fact that people’s choices are influenced by changes in their wealth. Where...

A quick response to the latest IPCC report on climate change, published as Time’s up: why Australia has to quit stalling and wean itself off fossil fuels Because of tight deadlines, the editor added a fair bit of material to my draft. I stand by all the content, but not all the language is mine. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

from Fernando García-Quero and Fernando López Castellano and RWER current issue Overconfidence in the magical thinking of technification, economic growth, the free market, and neoliberal globalization has led many to forget that the state is the main policy architect and actor when facing a crisis. Successful responses to Covid-19 have shown, once again, the central role of states in organizing political measures that foster and maintain the welfare of their populations, through actions...

Below is an on-line comment I submitted re The New York Times’ op-ed (Aril 7, 2022) on the Bucha atrocities. The comment speaks to the tilted character of reporting on the Ukraine war. That tilt should be of concern to all who care about freedom, democracy, and open society.   “Who committed the Bucha atrocities […]

I recently contributed an essay to a paper series published by the University of Toronto’s Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance. The focus of my own essay is the role Canadian municipalities can play in addressing homelessness. A ‘top 10’ overview of the essay can be found here (in English): https://nickfalvo.ca/what-can-municipalities-do-about-homelessness/ A ‘top 10’ overview of the essay can be found here (in French):...

At this moment, retail energy prices (prices paid by consumers and companies for final use of energy) are, compared with other consumer prices, rising fast. Has this happened before? Yesterdays post shows that in the EU and since 2006 the rise is exceptional. But what shows when we look further back in time? For reasons of convenience and because the USA data stretch back to 1960 while the EU data only stretch back to 1997 I’ve tinkered a little with USA consumer price data. The answer...