Workplace technological changes were instrumental in creating new tasks for women over the last century. This paper studies the adoption of the typewriter into US workplaces. Exploiting exogenous variation in typist demand across sectors, I document that the typewriter increased women’s labor force participation, leading to lower rates of marriage and fertility. These developments stemmed…
Typewriters and fertility
Typewriters and fertility
01 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economic history, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: economics of fertility
Pre-market societies could sometimes have alot of violence
01 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of crime, law and economics Tags: evolutionary anthropology
Non-capitalist or pre-capitalist societies can have quite a bit of violence. The first quote comes from The Making of Economic Society, 13e by Robert L. Heilbroner and William Milberg. “It is difficult for us to reconstruct the violent tenor of much of feudal life, but one investigator has provided a statistic that may serve to…
Pre-market societies could sometimes have alot of violence
Air Conditioning Torn From Homes Under Net Zero Clampdown
30 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming
Homeowners are being forced to tear out air conditioning from their properties under Net Zero laws that prioritise “passive cooling” and only permit “active cooling” as a “last resort”. The Telegraph has the story. The post Air Conditioning Torn From Homes Under Net Zero Clampdown appeared first on Watts Up With That?.
Air Conditioning Torn From Homes Under Net Zero Clampdown
Will future biomedical advances be low marginal cost?
30 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
Most pharmaceuticals involve high upfront costs, to discover and test the drug, and very low marginal costs. Another pill can be printed almost for free. That cost structure favors health systems, such as that of Britain, that try to pay lower for services. They can end up getting a relatively good deal from price discrimination. …
Will future biomedical advances be low marginal cost?
No Wind? No Sun? What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
29 Jun 2026 2 Comments
in energy economics Tags: solar power, wind power
You guessed it! Coal and gas! It’s wonderful, all of this “renewable” electricity! The post No Wind? No Sun? What Could Possibly Go Wrong? appeared first on Watts Up With That?.
No Wind? No Sun? What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Renationalising British utilities
29 Jun 2026 1 Comment
in industrial organisation, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice Tags: British politics
There is talk of this with the pending change in PM, but I would not do it. I am quite aware that a) not all of the privatisations went well, and b) American data indicate that state-owned utilities do not seem very economically different than, or less efficient than, privately-owned utilities. Especially for water, where…
Renationalising British utilities
Nine Tweets Ripping Mamdani’s Economically Illiterate Expansion of Rent Control
28 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, income redistribution, law and economics, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, urban economics Tags: rent control
I’ve written several columns (here, here, here, here, and here) detailing the folly of rent control. And now that New York City’s dilettante socialist mayor has proposed to expand rent control, I thought about doing the same thing. But I noticed so many clever comments on Twitter/X that I decided on a different approach. Here […]
Nine Tweets Ripping Mamdani’s Economically Illiterate Expansion of Rent Control
Going “All In”: The Supreme Court Delivers Major Wins for the Trump Administration Over Immigration Enforcement
28 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: constitutional law, economics of immigration, racial discrimination
Below is my column on Fox.com on the two immigration decisions yesterday from the Supreme Court. One of the cases…
Going “All In”: The Supreme Court Delivers Major Wins for the Trump Administration Over Immigration Enforcement
Elvis’s last concert.
28 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in Music
Anyone who tells me they like rock music but don’t like Elvis, are either lying or don’t like rock or pop music at all. The fact is that without Elvis Rock N Roll would have never been as popular as it is. He always will have a special place in my heart. However there is […]
Elvis’s last concert.
The Hollowing of the Political Centre
27 Jun 2026 1 Comment
in liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: voter demographics
Across the Western democracies, the political centre is under pressure. The populist right is rising, especially in Europe and the United States, while younger voters are showing renewed interest in socialism, or at least in much more interventionist economic policies. The result is not that the centre has vanished, but that it has lost much […]
The Hollowing of the Political Centre
The mighty hurdle facing The Opportunity Party
27 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
Since 1996 no new party has entered Parliament without either a sitting or former MP leading it. The Conservative Party in 2014 came close to doing so, scoring about 4% of the party vote, but ultimately failed and never attained that level of support again.
The mighty hurdle facing The Opportunity Party
I’m a non-gestating parent!
26 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in politics - USA, law and economics, gender, discrimination Tags: political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
The NY Post reports: A woke new bill erases the terms “mother” and “father” from state child custody and parental laws — a gender-neutral rewriting that’s expected to spark a flood of similarly clunky legislation. “Mother” would be replaced with “gestating parent” while “father” becomes “non-gestating parent” or “parent” in family court along with in domestic and education law,…
I’m a non-gestating parent!
IKE AND WINSTON: WORLD WAR, COLD WAR, AN EXTRAORDINARY FRIENDSHIP by Jonathan W. Jordan
26 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economic history, war and peace Tags: World War II
(Churchill and Eisenhower) Jonathan W. Jordan has written a superbly blended dual biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Winston S. Churchill entitled IKE AND WINSTON:WORLD WAR, COLD WAR, AN EXTRAORDINARY FRIENDSHIP. He focuses on their relationship from the time they met in 1941 carrying through World War II and the Cold War. It is carefully […]
IKE AND WINSTON: WORLD WAR, COLD WAR, AN EXTRAORDINARY FRIENDSHIP by Jonathan W. Jordan
Protecting the Truth of the Holocaust
25 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: Nazi Germany, The Holocaust, World War II
++++++++++++++CAUTION: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES++++++++++++++++ When Dwight D. Eisenhower entered Ohrdruf Concentration Camp after it was liberated, he had the foresight to document the horrors he saw with his own eyes. Ohrdruf was liberated on 4 April 1945, by the 4th Armored Division, led by Brigadier General Joseph F. H. Cutrona, and the 89th Infantry Division. […]
Protecting the Truth of the Holocaust
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