Podcasts about Ricardian

Jon Hartley and Robert Barro discuss Robert's career in economics including his long list of famous students, and research on Ricardian equivalence, fiscal theory of the price level, government spending multipliers, business cycles and the legacy of New Keynesian modeling, economic growth, political economy, the interplay between religion and economics, and much more. Recorded on March 18, 2025. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Robert J. Barro is a Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard University, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and a B.S. in physics from Caltech. Barro is co-editor of Harvard's Quarterly Journal of Economics and has been President of the Western Economic Association and Vice President of the American Economic Association. He was a viewpoint columnist for Business Week from 1998 to 2006 and a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal from 1991 to 1998. He has written extensively on macroeconomics and economic growth. Recent research involves rare macroeconomic disasters, corporate tax reform, religion & economy, empirical determinants of economic growth, and economic effects of public debt and budget deficits. Recent books include The Wealth of Religions: The Political Economy of Believing and Belonging (with Rachel M. McCleary), Economic Growth (2nd edition, with Xavier Sala-i-Martin), Nothing Is Sacred: Economic Ideas for the New Millennium, Determinants of Economic Growth, and Getting It Right: Markets and Choices in a Free Society. Jon Hartley is currently a Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an economics PhD Candidate at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and an Affiliated Scholar at the Mercatus Center. Jon also is the host of the Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century Podcast, an official podcast of the Hoover Institution, a member of the Canadian Group of Economists, and the chair of the Economic Club of Miami. Jon has previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as a Fixed Income Portfolio Construction and Risk Management Associate and as a Quantitative Investment Strategies Client Portfolio Management Senior Analyst and in various policy/governmental roles at the World Bank, IMF, Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Bank of Canada.  Jon has also been a regular economics contributor for National Review Online, Forbes and The Huffington Post and has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star among other outlets. Jon has also appeared on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, Bloomberg, and NBC and was named to the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Law & Policy list, the 2017 Wharton 40 Under 40 list and was previously a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. ABOUT THE SERIES: Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, occupational licensing, education vouchers, income share agreements, the distribution of income, and negative income taxes, among many other topics. For more information, visit: capitalismandfreedom.substack.com/

For centuries, the work ethic was used to justify inequality, but it also fueled a powerful movement for justice. In the final part of this series, Elizabeth Anderson and Dart Lindsley explore the progressive work ethic, a vision of labor rooted in dignity, equality, and shared prosperity. They trace how thinkers like Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, the Ricardian Socialists, and Karl Marx inspired reforms in education, labor rights, and social insurance, laying the foundation for social democracy. The conversation then turns to the neoliberal revival of the conservative work ethic, where leaders like Reagan and Thatcher redefined work to cut protections, concentrate power, and suppress wages. This isn't just history—it's a framework for how we treat work today.Elizabeth Anderson is a political philosopher known for her work on democracy, economic justice, and the ethics of work. Her latest book, Hijacked, explores how the work ethic was distorted by neoliberalism to undermine workers and how it can be reclaimed to support fairness and dignity in the workplace.In this episode, Dart and Elizabeth discuss:- How the progressive work ethic reshaped labor- Why Smith and Mill saw work as freedom, not control- How Marx and the Ricardian socialists fought for justice- The rise of worker protections and education- How neoliberalism shifted power to corporations- The fall of social democracy and its effects today- Reclaiming work as a source of dignity and fairness- And other topics…Professor Elizabeth Anderson specializes in moral and political philosophy, feminist theory, social epistemology, and the philosophy of economics. She holds the positions of Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women's & Gender Studies, and Max Shaye Professor of Public Philosophy at the University of Michigan. A MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, Elizabeth has written extensively on democracy, labor, and economic justice, including her latest book, Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned the Work Ethic Against Workers and How Workers Can Take It Back. Resources Mentioned:Hijacked, by Elizabeth Anderson: https://www.amazon.com/Hijacked-Neoliberalism-against-Workers-Lectures/dp/1009275437The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith: https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Nations-Adam-Smith/dp/1505577128Principles of Political Economy, by John Stuart Mill: https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Political-Economy-John-Stuart/dp/0678014531An Essay on the Principle of Population, by Thomas Malthus: https://www.amazon.com/Principle-Population-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/0192837478Connect with Elizabeth:Profile: https://lsa.umich.edu/philosophy/people/faculty/eandersn.html Work with Dart:Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what's most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.

In 1817, in a region of the eastern coast of British India then known as Cuttack, a group of Paiks, the area's landed militia, began agitating against the East India Company's government, burning down government buildings and looting the treasury. While the attacks were initially understood as an attempt to return the territory's native ruler to power, investigations following the rebellion's suppression traced the cause back to the introduction of a model of revenue governance unsuited to local conditions. Elsewhere in British India, throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, interregional debates over revenue settlement models and property disputes in villages revealed an array of practices of governance that negotiated with the problem of their applicability to local conditions. And at the same time in Britain, the dominant Ricardian conception of political economy was being challenged by thinkers like Richard Jones and William Whewell, who sought to make political economy an inductive science, capable of analyzing the real world. Through analyses of these three interrelated moments in British imperial history, Upal Chakrabarti's Assembling the Local: Political Economy and Agrarian Governance in British India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) engages with articulations of the "local" on multiple theoretical and empirical fronts, weaving them into a complex reflection on the problem of difference and a critical commentary on connections between political economy, agrarian property, and governance. Chakrabarti argues that the "local" should be reconceptualized as an abstract machine, central to the construction of the universal, namely, the establishment of political economy as a form of governance in nineteenth-century British India. Arighna Gupta is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His dissertation attempts to trace early-colonial genealogies of popular sovereignty located at the interstices of monarchical, religious, and colonial sovereignties in India and present-day Bangladesh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In 1817, in a region of the eastern coast of British India then known as Cuttack, a group of Paiks, the area's landed militia, began agitating against the East India Company's government, burning down government buildings and looting the treasury. While the attacks were initially understood as an attempt to return the territory's native ruler to power, investigations following the rebellion's suppression traced the cause back to the introduction of a model of revenue governance unsuited to local conditions. Elsewhere in British India, throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, interregional debates over revenue settlement models and property disputes in villages revealed an array of practices of governance that negotiated with the problem of their applicability to local conditions. And at the same time in Britain, the dominant Ricardian conception of political economy was being challenged by thinkers like Richard Jones and William Whewell, who sought to make political economy an inductive science, capable of analyzing the real world. Through analyses of these three interrelated moments in British imperial history, Upal Chakrabarti's Assembling the Local: Political Economy and Agrarian Governance in British India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) engages with articulations of the "local" on multiple theoretical and empirical fronts, weaving them into a complex reflection on the problem of difference and a critical commentary on connections between political economy, agrarian property, and governance. Chakrabarti argues that the "local" should be reconceptualized as an abstract machine, central to the construction of the universal, namely, the establishment of political economy as a form of governance in nineteenth-century British India. Arighna Gupta is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His dissertation attempts to trace early-colonial genealogies of popular sovereignty located at the interstices of monarchical, religious, and colonial sovereignties in India and present-day Bangladesh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In 1817, in a region of the eastern coast of British India then known as Cuttack, a group of Paiks, the area's landed militia, began agitating against the East India Company's government, burning down government buildings and looting the treasury. While the attacks were initially understood as an attempt to return the territory's native ruler to power, investigations following the rebellion's suppression traced the cause back to the introduction of a model of revenue governance unsuited to local conditions. Elsewhere in British India, throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, interregional debates over revenue settlement models and property disputes in villages revealed an array of practices of governance that negotiated with the problem of their applicability to local conditions. And at the same time in Britain, the dominant Ricardian conception of political economy was being challenged by thinkers like Richard Jones and William Whewell, who sought to make political economy an inductive science, capable of analyzing the real world. Through analyses of these three interrelated moments in British imperial history, Upal Chakrabarti's Assembling the Local: Political Economy and Agrarian Governance in British India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) engages with articulations of the "local" on multiple theoretical and empirical fronts, weaving them into a complex reflection on the problem of difference and a critical commentary on connections between political economy, agrarian property, and governance. Chakrabarti argues that the "local" should be reconceptualized as an abstract machine, central to the construction of the universal, namely, the establishment of political economy as a form of governance in nineteenth-century British India. Arighna Gupta is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His dissertation attempts to trace early-colonial genealogies of popular sovereignty located at the interstices of monarchical, religious, and colonial sovereignties in India and present-day Bangladesh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

In 1817, in a region of the eastern coast of British India then known as Cuttack, a group of Paiks, the area's landed militia, began agitating against the East India Company's government, burning down government buildings and looting the treasury. While the attacks were initially understood as an attempt to return the territory's native ruler to power, investigations following the rebellion's suppression traced the cause back to the introduction of a model of revenue governance unsuited to local conditions. Elsewhere in British India, throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, interregional debates over revenue settlement models and property disputes in villages revealed an array of practices of governance that negotiated with the problem of their applicability to local conditions. And at the same time in Britain, the dominant Ricardian conception of political economy was being challenged by thinkers like Richard Jones and William Whewell, who sought to make political economy an inductive science, capable of analyzing the real world. Through analyses of these three interrelated moments in British imperial history, Upal Chakrabarti's Assembling the Local: Political Economy and Agrarian Governance in British India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) engages with articulations of the "local" on multiple theoretical and empirical fronts, weaving them into a complex reflection on the problem of difference and a critical commentary on connections between political economy, agrarian property, and governance. Chakrabarti argues that the "local" should be reconceptualized as an abstract machine, central to the construction of the universal, namely, the establishment of political economy as a form of governance in nineteenth-century British India. Arighna Gupta is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His dissertation attempts to trace early-colonial genealogies of popular sovereignty located at the interstices of monarchical, religious, and colonial sovereignties in India and present-day Bangladesh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1817, in a region of the eastern coast of British India then known as Cuttack, a group of Paiks, the area's landed militia, began agitating against the East India Company's government, burning down government buildings and looting the treasury. While the attacks were initially understood as an attempt to return the territory's native ruler to power, investigations following the rebellion's suppression traced the cause back to the introduction of a model of revenue governance unsuited to local conditions. Elsewhere in British India, throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, interregional debates over revenue settlement models and property disputes in villages revealed an array of practices of governance that negotiated with the problem of their applicability to local conditions. And at the same time in Britain, the dominant Ricardian conception of political economy was being challenged by thinkers like Richard Jones and William Whewell, who sought to make political economy an inductive science, capable of analyzing the real world. Through analyses of these three interrelated moments in British imperial history, Upal Chakrabarti's Assembling the Local: Political Economy and Agrarian Governance in British India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) engages with articulations of the "local" on multiple theoretical and empirical fronts, weaving them into a complex reflection on the problem of difference and a critical commentary on connections between political economy, agrarian property, and governance. Chakrabarti argues that the "local" should be reconceptualized as an abstract machine, central to the construction of the universal, namely, the establishment of political economy as a form of governance in nineteenth-century British India. Arighna Gupta is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His dissertation attempts to trace early-colonial genealogies of popular sovereignty located at the interstices of monarchical, religious, and colonial sovereignties in India and present-day Bangladesh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

This episode of Economics Explored explores the theory of Ricardian equivalence, a proposition that fiscal policy measures like tax cuts or stimulus payments may not effectively boost the economy if households anticipate higher future taxes to pay off government debt. Host Gene Tunny explains the concept originating from David Ricardo and popularized by Robert Barro, involving ultra-rational consumer optimization over infinite time horizons. While an elegant theoretical model, Ricardian equivalence relies on unrealistic assumptions and fails empirical tests. Evidence shows households do increase spending after rebates or transfers, although not always by as much as policy makers would like. Ultimately, while the merits of discretionary fiscal policy are debatable, Ricardian equivalence is too extreme a hypothesis. Households do not behave as ultra-rational dynamic optimizing models predict.Please get in touch with us with any questions, comments and suggestions by emailing us at contact@economicsexplored.com or sending a voice message via https://www.speakpipe.com/economicsexplored. You can listen to the episode via the embedded player below or via podcasting apps including Google Podcasts, Apple Podcast and Spotify.TakeawaysFive takeaways from this episode are:1. Ricardian equivalence is an elegant theoretical model but relies on unrealistic assumptions about rational consumer behavior.2. Empirical evidence overwhelmingly finds that households do increase spending after tax rebates or fiscal stimulus, contrary to Ricardian equivalence predictions.3. Related concepts like Friedman's permanent income hypothesis are more nuanced but also face limitations in fully explaining consumer decisions.4. While fiscal policy faces challenges, Ricardian equivalence is not a compelling argument against its effectiveness due to failures of the underlying theory.5. Examining economic models against real-world evidence is important for evaluating their validity and implications for policy.TimestampsIntroduction. (0:00)David Ricardo's economic theories and their relevance today. (5:30)Ricardian equivalence in macroeconomics. (11:02)Consumption function and fiscal policy. (17:48)Rational economic models and their implications. (23:18)Ricardian equivalence theory and its limitations. (26:41)Ricardian equivalence theory and its empirical support. (33:59)Consumer spending after receiving tax rebates. (39:10)Ricardian equivalence in economics. (43:55)LinksPrevious episode in which Ricardian Equivalence was mentioned:https://economicsexplored.com/2024/01/11/the-limits-of-fiscal-policy-insights-from-tony-makin-alex-robson-others-ep222/Robert Barro's 1974 article “Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?”https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/course131/Barro74JPE.pdfJames M. Buchanan on “Barro on the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem”https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/260436Geoffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan on “The Logic of the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem”https://www.jstor.org/stable/40911555John J. Seater on “Ricardian Equivalence”https://www.jstor.org/stable/2728152T. D. Stanley on “New Wine in Old Bottles: A Meta-Analysis of Ricardian Equivalence”https://www.jstor.org/stable/1060788Economist 2008 column “Ricardian equivalence is dead”https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2008/05/19/ricardian-equivalence-is-deadAnrdrew Leigh's paper “How Much Did the 2009 Australian Fiscal Stimulus Boost Demand? Evidence from Household-Reported Spending Effects”http://andrewleigh.org/pdf/FiscalStimulus.pdfMatthew D. Shapiro & Joel B. Slemrod's study “Did the 2008 Tax Rebates Stimulate Spending?”https://www.nber.org/papers/w14753Claudia R. Sahm, Matthew D. Shapiro and Joel Slemrod's analysis “Check in the Mail or More in the Paycheck: Does the Effectiveness of Fiscal Stimulus Depend on How It Is Delivered?” https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.4.3.216Ikuo Saito's paper “Fading Ricardian Equivalence in Ageing Japan”https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2016/12/31/Fading-Ricardian-Equivalence-in-Ageing-Japan-44302Thanks to Obsidian Productions for mixing the episode and to the show's sponsor, Gene's consultancy business www.adepteconomics.com.au. Full transcripts are available a few days after the episode is first published at www.economicsexplored.com. Economics Explored is available via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, and other podcasting platforms.

If Trump has one sensible policy its his drive to reindustrialise America. Since he left the Oval Office we've had global supply chains challenged by the pandemic, wars and a downturn in economies we used to rely on for cheap goods. The financial advantage of outsourcing to Asia is losing some of its gloss, and the uncertainty of supply has to be a real concern. Add climate change to the equation, with haulage vessels mass emitters of pollution, there are even more reasons to produce more at home. But how realistic is it for a country like Britain to reindustrialise. Shouldn't it be a priority? Or are we still wedded to the Ricardian theory of comparative advantage? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 2: Classical Economics The second volume contains an enlightening critique of Ricardian economics, showing the constraints on theory entailed by Ricardo's static and pseudo-mathematical method. Ricardo's successor John Stuart Mill is the object of a devastating intellectual portrait. Marxism is subjected to a merciless demolition, and Rothbard shows the roots of this system in metaphysical speculation. The French classical liberals such as Bastiat, on the other hand, contributed to the subjectivist school. A further highlight of this volume is a discussion of the bullionist controversy: the views of the Banking and Currency Schools receive extensive analysis. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach

Monday, October 30, 2023 Hoover Institution | Stanford University A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Matthew Lowenstein. The history of the rise and decline of horse populations provide a framework to understand how humans could initially benefit from AI, only to become obsolete later on, challenging optimistic forecasts about AI's impact. The paper is divided into three main sections: 1) introduction, including a brief summary of the premises of the horse analogy, 2) an account of human and horse interaction over approximately 6,000 years, highlighting how technological advancement led to a rise in horse populations, followed by collapse, and 3) a theoretical exploration of AI existential risk, using the eventual collapse in horse populations as a proof of concept.    By drawing parallels between the human domestication of horses and a potential future dominated by Artificial Superintelligence (ASI), the paper shows specifically why neither Ricardian trade nor competition amongst different ASIs are likely to protect humans from existential calamity. The paper encourages a critical approach to future AI-human dynamics, drawing upon lessons from past human-animal relations. Though the analogy has limitations, it provides insights into any scenario where a more intelligent agent significantly impacts a less intelligent one. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Matthew Lowenstein is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He studies the economic history of modern China from the late imperial period to the early People's Republic. His dissertation, which he is currently turning into a book, is a study of northern China's indigenous financial system from the late Qing to the early Republican period (ca. 1820–1911). Other interests include the history of traditional Chinese accounting, the political economy of warlordism, and the history of central economic planning. Lowenstein received his PhD in history from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Lowenstein previously worked as a securities analyst in Beijing and New York covering the Chinese financial sector. His nonacademic works have appeared in the Diplomat and Foreign Policy.

Discover the triumphant story of an amateur historian who played a pivotal role in reshaping British royal history as depicted in the excellent film, The Lost King. Our guest, Nottingham Trent University PhD Student, Robyn Whalley, shares insights into how Richard III became lost in the first place and how the discovery of his gravesite has led to a resurrection of his legacy, altering the course of historical narratives forever.Ricardians unite and rejoice! 

Today we have a second special for you from our place as podcasters in residence at the Gloucester History Festival, and joining Paul today is a return rager in the form of Author and Historian Nathen Amin who has come back to rail at the more extremist elements of Ricardian culture (as very distinct from the Richard III Society) and how they go too far.We'll hear a surprising defence of Richard and how he just might not be the architect of his own downfall.You can, and should, read Nathen's book Henry VII and the Tudor Pretenders and this is available in the History Rage Bookshop and you can follow Nicola on Twitter @nathenaminIf you've not managed to make it this year then the festival returns twice in 2024, those dates are 12th April to 14th April and 7th September to 22nd September 2024.You can sign up to the Festival Mailing List at gloucesterhistoryfestival.co.uk and follow them on Twitter @gloshistfestSupport the show Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Ruff Radio, Christine sits down with Tracy Bryce a dedicated Ricardian and Chairperson of the Richard III Society of Canada. Listen in! *Episode note: Correction for Joy Brown Ibsen's last names.  Her maiden name, through which John Ashdown-Hill traced the mitochondrial DNA from Richard III's sister Anne of Exeter, was Brown.  Her married name was Ibsen. 

On today's episode I'm joined by and Jorge Izquierdo and Alejandro Perezpayá.   Jorge Izquierdo is the co-founder of Aragon, the first full featured on-chain DAO governance system. On this episode, Jorge and Alejandro Perezpayá join me to discuss the history of Aragon and their new startup Firm. First, Jorge tells the story of how he and Luis Cuende pivoted from a building a startup to fight patent trolls to cofounding Aragon in 2016, the year of the infamous DAO fork. We discuss the evolution of Aragon, and what worked and what didn't in the first iteration of onchain governance tooling on Ethereum. In the second half of the show we focus on Firm. Firm is an operating system for internet companies. The product combines Safe's multisig permissions affordances, Ricardian contracts for incorporation in a specific jurisdiction, and onchain representations of capitalization tables for transparent and onchain corporate ownership. As always, this show is provided for entertainment and education purposes only and does not constitute financial advice or any form of endorsement or suggestion. Crypto is risky and you alone are responsible for doing your research and making your own decisions. I think a lot of people with experience building DAOs discover a newfound appreciation for the tried and true corporate firm. It was great speaking with Jorge and Alejandro about their journey and perspective on the future of internet native companies. I hope you enjoy the show.

I stumbled across a Gavekal Research Daily Comment over the weekend with a really interesting table that I thought we could discuss today.Gavekal Research, if you don't know it, is a financial research firm that provides analysis and insights on global economies, markets and industries. It was founded in 1999 by Charles Gave, Anatole Kaletsky, and Louis-Vincent Gave, and is headquartered in Hong Kong. It is, the internet tells me, known for its holistic approach to analysis. Holistic is one of those corporate buzzwords that I never really know what it meant. Again the internet is our friend: in the context of financial analysis, holistic analysis refers to considering a wide range of factors, such as economic, political, and behavioural, in order to gain a full understanding of market developments. It is a way of looking at the big picture rather than just focusing on specific details or individual factors.Why didn't they just say “big picture”? Such is the equivocal financial world in which we live.In any case, Louis-Vincent's Gave's report is a compelling one. He describes how, roughly every decade or so, financial markets fall in love with a new narrative. This is something we have observed many times in the column. The 1970s were all about precious metals and energy. The 1980s went to Japan. The 1990s saw tech stocks take over and the 2000s were all about natural resources and extraordinary growth in China. The 2010s were all about tech.So what about the 2020s. What are they all about?What does the next decade have in store for investors? Gave suggests that there are three narratives each with a core idea: “The opening of new markets to capitalism (Ricardian growth), technological breakthroughs (Schumpeterian growth), or the fear that in the coming years there will not be enough for everyone (the Malthusian constraint).”Each time the narrative is persuasive and rooted in some truth, which is why it takes hold, but by the end of the cycle, valuations reach such extremes that they no longer make sense, a bear market sets in and a new narrative takes over. Asset allocation is everything, I have often argued - and it has been repeatedly proven that being int he right sector is more important than individual stock selection. All you have to do is shift from narrative to narrative. A lot easier said than done of course.But here is Gave's humdinger of a table.Share this amazing article.You can see how clearly the narrative has shifted with each decade. By the end of the 1970s six of the world's largest ten companies were oil companies. By the end of the next decade, just one of them was.By the end of the 1980s, eight of the world's largest ten companies were Japanese. By the end of the following decade, just two of them were.At the turn of the century, seven of the world's largest ten companies were tech related. By the end of the following decade, just two were.At the end of the noughties, seven of the world's largest companies were natural resource companies. By the end of the following decade, not one was.2022 seems to have marked the turning point. The Covid rallies in tech were the final spike in an amazing bull market. These are all huge companies that make the foundation on which portfolios are built. But how many of 2021's top ten will be there in ten years' time? Not more than two or three I wouldn't have thought.You have to hand it to Microsoft. It's been there three decades running. Perhaps that's because, in a way, as much as it is a tech stock it is also a patent holding company. Apple has also made that list twice. So mighty are these companies and so entrenched in their monopolies, it is very hard to envisage them not being so mighty in ten years' time.  But this is the world of tech. New inventions can come along that quickly make old monopolies redundant.In that regard, I've just been playing with a new Open AI chat bot that my son, who is at University in Bristol, put me on to and it's extraordinary. It can write essays. It wrote a biog that I am now going to use on my site - and it's a better biog than I've ever had. What the impact of it might be on, say, Google, who knows? The investment landscape has changed for goodGave says waiting for the Fed to cut rates and being long the likes of Nvidia or Alphabet makes “about as much sense as sitting in Tokyo in 1992 waiting for the Bank of Japan to cut rates in order to buy Industrial Bank of Japan.”In short, we are in a transitioning phase. What does the next decade have in store for us? Elsewhere Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital also argues that we are in a “Sea Change” - only the third we have seen in his career. That the model of success for the previous cycle is not going to work this time around. He suggests that the high leverage, asset owning, low-interest rate, low yield, low inflation models of the last cycle are behind us. The general landscape is much less optimistic. He suggests that stimulative rates are not coming anytime soon and that the base rate will remain in the 2-4% range. We are now in a full-return world, not a low-return world, and investors can get good returns from credit yield instruments -  high-yielding bonds and so on.What worked before will not work now. What works now might be something that hasn't worked for a long time.Commodities could be winners Gave meanwhile suggests emerging markets and commodities. Even with a China slowdown/lockdown, the Fed tightening and a surging US dollar, the S&P Goldman Sachs Commodities Index (S&P GCSI) has still returned 27%.This will be an even better story when these forces reverse - when China opens up, the Fed stops tightening and the US dollar rolls over. The GSCI has returned 27% mostly on the back of energy. Metals have been a rather different story. But with those three reversals in place - weak dollar, no more tightening and China open - the stage is set for metals.What do you think the next decade's narrative is going to be? It's there percolating somewhere. Malthusian, Ricardian or Schumpterian?Check out special report on helium, if you haven't already, and Dr John's latest on bonds. Both for paying subscribers, there is lots of valuable info to be had.Please consider subscribing.If you are interested in buying gold bullion, my current recommended bullion dealer in the UK is The Pure Gold Company, whether you are taking delivery or storing online. Premiums are low, quality of service is high. You can deal with a human being. I have an affiliation deals with them.Have you got you Kisses on a Postcard CDs yet?This article first appeared at Moneyweek. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

I stumbled across a Gavekal Research Daily Comment over the weekend with a really interesting table that I thought we could discuss today.Gavekal Research, if you don't know it, is a financial research firm that provides analysis and insights on global economies, markets and industries. It was founded in 1999 by Charles Gave, Anatole Kaletsky, and Louis-Vincent Gave, and is headquartered in Hong Kong. It is, the internet tells me, known for its holistic approach to analysis. Holistic is one of those corporate buzzwords that I never really know what it meant. Again the internet is our friend: in the context of financial analysis, holistic analysis refers to considering a wide range of factors, such as economic, political, and behavioural, in order to gain a full understanding of market developments. It is a way of looking at the big picture rather than just focusing on specific details or individual factors.Why didn't they just say “big picture”? Such is the equivocal financial world in which we live.In any case, Louis-Vincent's Gave's report is a compelling one. He describes how, roughly every decade or so, financial markets fall in love with a new narrative. This is something we have observed many times in the column. The 1970s were all about precious metals and energy. The 1980s went to Japan. The 1990s saw tech stocks take over and the 2000s were all about natural resources and extraordinary growth in China. The 2010s were all about tech.So what about the 2020s. What are they all about?What does the next decade have in store for investors? Gave suggests that there are three narratives each with a core idea: “The opening of new markets to capitalism (Ricardian growth), technological breakthroughs (Schumpeterian growth), or the fear that in the coming years there will not be enough for everyone (the Malthusian constraint).”Each time the narrative is persuasive and rooted in some truth, which is why it takes hold, but by the end of the cycle, valuations reach such extremes that they no longer make sense, a bear market sets in and a new narrative takes over. Asset allocation is everything, I have often argued - and it has been repeatedly proven that being int he right sector is more important than individual stock selection. All you have to do is shift from narrative to narrative. A lot easier said than done of course.But here is Gave's humdinger of a table.Share this amazing article.You can see how clearly the narrative has shifted with each decade. By the end of the 1970s six of the world's largest ten companies were oil companies. By the end of the next decade, just one of them was.By the end of the 1980s, eight of the world's largest ten companies were Japanese. By the end of the following decade, just two of them were.At the turn of the century, seven of the world's largest ten companies were tech related. By the end of the following decade, just two were.At the end of the noughties, seven of the world's largest companies were natural resource companies. By the end of the following decade, not one was.2022 seems to have marked the turning point. The Covid rallies in tech were the final spike in an amazing bull market. These are all huge companies that make the foundation on which portfolios are built. But how many of 2021's top ten will be there in ten years' time? Not more than two or three I wouldn't have thought.You have to hand it to Microsoft. It's been there three decades running. Perhaps that's because, in a way, as much as it is a tech stock it is also a patent holding company. Apple has also made that list twice. So mighty are these companies and so entrenched in their monopolies, it is very hard to envisage them not being so mighty in ten years' time.  But this is the world of tech. New inventions can come along that quickly make old monopolies redundant.In that regard, I've just been playing with a new Open AI chat bot that my son, who is at University in Bristol, put me on to and it's extraordinary. It can write essays. It wrote a biog that I am now going to use on my site - and it's a better biog than I've ever had. What the impact of it might be on, say, Google, who knows? The investment landscape has changed for goodGave says waiting for the Fed to cut rates and being long the likes of Nvidia or Alphabet makes “about as much sense as sitting in Tokyo in 1992 waiting for the Bank of Japan to cut rates in order to buy Industrial Bank of Japan.”In short, we are in a transitioning phase. What does the next decade have in store for us? Elsewhere Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital also argues that we are in a “Sea Change” - only the third we have seen in his career. That the model of success for the previous cycle is not going to work this time around. He suggests that the high leverage, asset owning, low-interest rate, low yield, low inflation models of the last cycle are behind us. The general landscape is much less optimistic. He suggests that stimulative rates are not coming anytime soon and that the base rate will remain in the 2-4% range. We are now in a full-return world, not a low-return world, and investors can get good returns from credit yield instruments -  high-yielding bonds and so on.What worked before will not work now. What works now might be something that hasn't worked for a long time.Commodities could be winners Gave meanwhile suggests emerging markets and commodities. Even with a China slowdown/lockdown, the Fed tightening and a surging US dollar, the S&P Goldman Sachs Commodities Index (S&P GCSI) has still returned 27%.This will be an even better story when these forces reverse - when China opens up, the Fed stops tightening and the US dollar rolls over. The GSCI has returned 27% mostly on the back of energy. Metals have been a rather different story. But with those three reversals in place - weak dollar, no more tightening and China open - the stage is set for metals.What do you think the next decade's narrative is going to be? It's there percolating somewhere. Malthusian, Ricardian or Schumpterian?Check out special report on helium, if you haven't already, and Dr John's latest on bonds. Both for paying subscribers, there is lots of valuable info to be had.Please consider subscribing.If you are interested in buying gold bullion, my current recommended bullion dealer in the UK is The Pure Gold Company, whether you are taking delivery or storing online. Premiums are low, quality of service is high. You can deal with a human being. I have an affiliation deals with them.Have you got you Kisses on a Postcard CDs yet?This article first appeared at Moneyweek. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

RWA for ReFi Real World Asset Projects in Gitcoin GR15 from ReFiFriday RWA Twitter Space
 Gitcoin is not just for software! GR15 is funding millions of dollars for public goods, including, real on the ground, real world asset projects (RWA's). Check out these RWA projects, almost all being built for ReFi (Regenerative Finance), ranging from climate, law, legal, solar, trees, real estate, property, endangered species, energy, art, NFT's, aquifers, water, building reuse, regenerative agriculture, carbon, nature, impact and more…. Learn about and donate to these 39 awesome projects even if just a $1 or DAI or USDC each.... Only $39.... https://gitcoin.co/grants/explorer/?collection_id=31570 00:00:20 Stay Open. Pod hotel communities for digital nomads in repurposed buildings. NFT membership: Stay Pass. Seed funding @staydao 00:02:10 adaptive reuse of buildings, functionally obsolete buildings, digital nomad aspect 
00:03:30 open space, nature component, interoperable composable real estate and public art 
00:04:00 property could be used for nature, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, or, this part of the, this building can be used for educational purposes, by opening up smart contracts like basically mini lease agreements. 
00:05:00 funding public goods - blockchain, web3, open source software, climate, decentralized science, equity, diversity, inclusion, DeSci, ReSci, MRV, dMRV 00:05:50 RWA property real world assets. 00:06:10 Metaverse to IRL: tying it back to real on the ground climate action, social impact, nature action, overlap with refi and RWA. 
00:06:50 Lex DAO - legal engineering | crypto law 00:07:10 taterDAO Real world assets on-chain. Agriculture / Real Estate. RWA / Blockchain 00:07:20 RWA Consortium and KaliDAO LLC - When DAOs get real with real property. LexDao baby DAO forged with ETH and Ricardian series LLC. 00:09:40 quadratic funding and refi orbs!!
00:10:50 web3beach Social and environmental impact in Honduras 
00:14:20 ReCommon (RegenCLT)Establishing common ground for the resilient communities of our future where natural building, permaculture, Web3 economics, good urbanism, and regen ag meet.
00:18:10 rights of nature. Endangered Tokens: Invest in a Tree - Preserve-&-Earn - Tokenizing Endangered Trees & preserving them
00:24:40 ECORISE FINANCE - Blockchain solution for investing in Natural Capital an IMPACTDAO 00:27:30 Ben West from Gitcoin - https://twitter.com/BenWest 00:29:00 Blue Morpha Ocean Innovations - Climate-tech, Ocean-tech, Decentralized Utility Cooperative 
00:31:10 New Atlantis Ocean Regen & Marine Biodiversity Metagenomics 00:31:20 Regen Network around stewardship and practice based methodologies 00:31:40 SilviDAO is helping build economic and coordination tools to contribute to the trillion tree target. 00:35:20 angry teenagers TheAngryTeenagers 4,900 Angry Teenagers are coming to Tezos! They're living in a dystopian present. They're here to bring destroyed land back to life and create a better world 00:49:30 CougarDAO and basinDAO all these different real world asset projects 00:49:40 RWA stack, basinStack: Subsurface rights or air rights or legal or title, biodiversity and water, quality, water, quantity social impact carbon, habitat, defi apps we see a use case for insurance debt, equity, liquidity. 
00:51:10 Ogallala Life: Ancient roots, global inspiration and web3 tools to rehydrate the high plains 00:53:10 block Explorer. Catalyzing Web3 education especially focused on NFTs, Impact, Community + Regenerative Finance 00:54:50 Helios☀️ - next gen financial infrastructure powering high impact solar projects in emerging markets 01:03:10 harmony with nature - Ostrom's principles for managing the commons. 01:07:00 Khalon Bridge - Advancing the web3 economy in Africa by building a new world 01:14:50 regenerative agriculture movement - Ed Bourgeois -50+ yrs farming and food systems experience local to global - innovations and global farmer transition strategies 01:16:00 lease agreements, the contracts, climate lease 01:18:10 #ReFiFriday. 01:19:50 perpetual stewardship 01:20:10 Regen Hemp farmers in Turkey 01:21:40 MRV 101 01:24:40 Alejandro - Kokonut Network - Building the Infrastructure to Connect Web3 with Agriculture - "Unlimited Scalable Perpetual Nature Backed Assets" 01:25:50 RWA Circle at ReFiDAO - ReFi Founder's Circles - a cohort-based peer network of ReFi founders that meet regularly and get access to support from leading product, development design, and legal DAOs 01:26:10 Darren ReFi Bootcamp and ReGen Knowledge Graph and centree 01:27:20 $BASIN - sourcing and discovering properties for regenerative projects: climate carbon and nature projects. Scaling land restoration and conservation and the value of natural capital. 01:28:40 Rex St John - Organizing web3 ecosystems and communities. Developer Relations - ReFiSummit Organizer 01:30:00 White House Natural Capital / Natural Assets 01:30:50 proof of elephant

RWA for ReFi Real World Asset Projects in Gitcoin GR15 from ReFiFriday RWA Twitter Space
 Gitcoin is not just for software! GR15 is funding millions of dollars for public goods, including, real on the ground, real world asset projects (RWA's). Check out these RWA projects, almost all being built for ReFi (Regenerative Finance), ranging from climate, law, legal, solar, trees, real estate, property, endangered species, energy, art, NFT's, aquifers, water, building reuse, regenerative agriculture, carbon, nature, impact and more…. Learn about and donate to these 39 awesome projects even if just a $1 or DAI or USDC each.... Only $39.... https://gitcoin.co/grants/explorer/?collection_id=31570 00:00:20 Stay Open. Pod hotel communities for digital nomads in repurposed buildings. NFT membership: Stay Pass. Seed funding @staydao 00:02:10 adaptive reuse of buildings, functionally obsolete buildings, digital nomad aspect 
00:03:30 open space, nature component, interoperable composable real estate and public art 
00:04:00 property could be used for nature, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, or, this part of the, this building can be used for educational purposes, by opening up smart contracts like basically mini lease agreements. 
00:05:00 funding public goods - blockchain, web3, open source software, climate, decentralized science, equity, diversity, inclusion, DeSci, ReSci, MRV, dMRV 00:05:50 RWA property real world assets. 00:06:10 Metaverse to IRL: tying it back to real on the ground climate action, social impact, nature action, overlap with refi and RWA. 
00:06:50 Lex DAO - legal engineering | crypto law 00:07:10 taterDAO Real world assets on-chain. Agriculture / Real Estate. RWA / Blockchain 00:07:20 RWA Consortium and KaliDAO LLC - When DAOs get real with real property. LexDao baby DAO forged with ETH and Ricardian series LLC. 00:09:40 quadratic funding and refi orbs!!
00:10:50 web3beach Social and environmental impact in Honduras 
00:14:20 ReCommon (RegenCLT)Establishing common ground for the resilient communities of our future where natural building, permaculture, Web3 economics, good urbanism, and regen ag meet.
00:18:10 rights of nature. Endangered Tokens: Invest in a Tree - Preserve-&-Earn - Tokenizing Endangered Trees & preserving them
00:24:40 ECORISE FINANCE - Blockchain solution for investing in Natural Capital an IMPACTDAO 00:27:30 Ben West from Gitcoin - https://twitter.com/BenWest 00:29:00 Blue Morpha Ocean Innovations - Climate-tech, Ocean-tech, Decentralized Utility Cooperative 
00:31:10 New Atlantis Ocean Regen & Marine Biodiversity Metagenomics 00:31:20 Regen Network around stewardship and practice based methodologies 00:31:40 SilviDAO is helping build economic and coordination tools to contribute to the trillion tree target. 00:35:20 angry teenagers TheAngryTeenagers 4,900 Angry Teenagers are coming to Tezos! They're living in a dystopian present. They're here to bring destroyed land back to life and create a better world 00:49:30 CougarDAO and basinDAO all these different real world asset projects 00:49:40 RWA stack, basinStack: Subsurface rights or air rights or legal or title, biodiversity and water, quality, water, quantity social impact carbon, habitat, defi apps we see a use case for insurance debt, equity, liquidity. 
00:51:10 Ogallala Life: Ancient roots, global inspiration and web3 tools to rehydrate the high plains 00:53:10 block Explorer. Catalyzing Web3 education especially focused on NFTs, Impact, Community + Regenerative Finance 00:54:50 Helios☀️ - next gen financial infrastructure powering high impact solar projects in emerging markets 01:03:10 harmony with nature - Ostrom's principles for managing the commons. 01:07:00 Khalon Bridge - Advancing the web3 economy in Africa by building a new world 01:14:50 regenerative agriculture movement - Ed Bourgeois -50+ yrs farming and food systems experience local to global - innovations and global farmer transition strategies 01:16:00 lease agreements, the contracts, climate lease 01:18:10 #ReFiFriday. 01:19:50 perpetual stewardship 01:20:10 Regen Hemp farmers in Turkey 01:21:40 MRV 101 01:24:40 Alejandro - Kokonut Network - Building the Infrastructure to Connect Web3 with Agriculture - "Unlimited Scalable Perpetual Nature Backed Assets" 01:25:50 RWA Circle at ReFiDAO - ReFi Founder's Circles - a cohort-based peer network of ReFi founders that meet regularly and get access to support from leading product, development design, and legal DAOs 01:26:10 Darren ReFi Bootcamp and ReGen Knowledge Graph and centree 01:27:20 $BASIN - sourcing and discovering properties for regenerative projects: climate carbon and nature projects. Scaling land restoration and conservation and the value of natural capital. 01:28:40 Rex St John - Organizing web3 ecosystems and communities. Developer Relations - ReFiSummit Organizer 01:30:00 White House Natural Capital / Natural Assets 01:30:50 proof of elephant

In this episode of ACC, Prof. Harvey warns that the endless accumulation of capital in a variety of sectors is putting tremendous pressure on our economy, our world, and our very existence. Signs of economic growth—the rising mass of value; centralization of wealth and power in the hands of a small minority; the concentration of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere leading to serious climate and biological disruptions; the growing output of plastics; cement production in China; and airline travel and the surplus of liquidity seeking opportunities for investment—are being directed to unproductive activities like military expenditures and the defense industry, ever increasing the threat of nuclear war and mutually assured destruction. Harvey argues that international cooperation is needed and that alternatives must be explored. He discusses the work of Piketty and Ricardian Socialists as a way to address the growing inequality and gross injustices we are living through. He supports Piketty's ideas for the redistribution of income from the top 1% to the bottom 50% of the population and collaborative work models, like those of German and Swedish companies that give power to labor. 

Global Policy Watch #1: The Man Who Broke Capitalism?Global policy issues relevant for India- RSJOver the last couple of years, I have run through a list of books in what I call the ‘crisis in liberalism’ genre. There is a template that most of these books follow – begin with the fall of the Berlin wall, remind readers about Fukuyama’s ‘The End of History’ paper, run through the mistakes that a triumphal liberal order made through the next two decades, talk about capitalism running amok leading to the global financial crisis and then build a grand theory for the populist backlash we saw in the last few years.I wrote about these books on these pages. The list is long – The Globalisation Paradox, Radical Uncertainty, Radical Markets, The Light That Failed, The Code of Capital and maybe you could add the various Piketty books in here too. There’s a cottage industry that’s built up here and you can say I’m a huge patron of their artisanal products. Well, the good news is there’s a new addition to this genre this week. “The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America--And How to Undo His Legacy” by David Gelles. The title is a mouthful, but it is also convenient. It says everything it has to say in its unwieldy length. There’s not a lot more in the book except trying to retrofit all kinds of ills of capitalism seen today by the author back to Jack Welch. Gelles is all over the media this week (here, here) talking up the book and making the same points over and over again. And it got me thinking on two counts. One, why business management research and literature is almost always garbage? And two, why do we get public policy on managing business and capital wrong so often?On the book itself, I will try and summarise (in deliberate broad strokes) the three key arguments Gelles makes:There was some kind of a ‘golden age of capitalism’ in the thirty years after WW2. Companies took care of their people, distributed wealth equally, happily paid the taxes and employed people for life. Businesses saw themselves as more than profit maximising engines. There was a feeling of loyalty to the country, a fraternal sense of belonging to a community and a wider obligation to the supporting the government. All quite nice.Then in the early 70s, Friedman wrote that shareholder value maximisation paper (“The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits”) and the world was never the same again. Businesses focused more on their profits and soon lobbied for lower taxes and greater freedom in conducting their affairs. Reagan and the conservative revolution of small government followed. Into this mix came in Jack Welch as the CEO of GE, the iconic American institution. Welch singlehandedly destroyed capitalism as we knew it. He laid off people, shut factories, offshored jobs, built a shadow bank called GE Capital that reaped the benefits of financialisation, obsessed over meeting quarterly EPS numbers, stack ranked the employees in a bell curve, created the cult of CEO worship and initiated everything that you find wrong today in business. Quite an extraordinary feat in doing bad things at work. In Gelles’ words: “He's on the Mount Rushmore of men who screwed up this country.” The book then goes onto show how Welch’s long shadow still haunts corporate America despite obvious evidence that he got it all wrong. GE is among the worst-performing stock in the last two decades. It announced last year it plans to split itself into three different businesses to unlock shareholder value. GE Capital, the engine that Welch built, is defunct. Yet, business leaders worship at the altar of quarterly earnings, force ranking employees, financial engineering, building personal brands and negotiating ever increase compensation packages for themselves.  So, what’s the solution? I’m not sure if I understood it from the book. Gelles isn’t advocating for socialism surely. But he does throw around words like stakeholder capitalism and praises the current CEO of Unilever and the founder of WEF that holds an annual event at Davos for their efforts to build compassionate capitalism. Some kind of a future where we don’t measure companies on shareholder value but another set of metrics involving all stakeholders that rein in the single-minded pursuit of profits is his solution. All quite fuzzy because he seems to run out of steam by the end of the book. All that Welch bashing is tiring.Let me digress a bit here.When I started my career, the ‘GE way’ was a rage in corporate India. I remember picking up a pirated version of Welch’s autobiography from a streetside vendor at Kala Ghoda. Everyone I knew was reading it. Except for the parts about his growing up that were written with some honesty, the book was terrible. All the stories followed the same pattern. Welch gets a call and goes down to a factory floor or to a customer site. There he hears or notices something small that gets him thinking. Then he finds someone young who reminds him of his younger self – direct, analytical and abrasive. Welch decides either on shutting down or buying a new business based on his gut. He gives this young man (almost always a man) the mandate to do it. Young man does the magic and Welch basks in his foresightedness.Interspersed between these familiar stories, I got Welch’s views on lifelong employability (not employment), how to be tough but fair, his views on the future of business and, of course, six sigma.Ah, Six Sigma.You couldn’t ignore Six Sigma in India during those days. Welch had elevated it into some kind of a religion at GE. Everyone had to follow it. There were weekly Yellow belt and Green belt training programmes in every company where employees would be taught some basic statistics, and something called the DMAIC model. If you did well, you would then go on to a rigorous Black belt certification programme. The ultimate big daddy of them all was the Master Black belt - a Shaolin master with scores of Black belts in his stable who could be unleashed on any problem. All Master Black Belts came from GE and for them, the answer to every single problem was a Six Sigma project. Complaints about canteen food in the office? Run a Six Sigma project. Spending too much on office stationery? Why, Six Sigma can help. People quitting because the work is drudgery? No problem, Six Sigma will solve it. I even remember a training programme where a Six Sigma expert told us he could solve the Israel-Palestine problem using Six Sigma if only they invited him. To me the whole thing, as it was run in India, was a charade. There was no new idea or insight that came out following it. It was just bureaucracy with some babus lording over us because they were certified in this nonsense. Japan was always shown as a shining example of the success of such techniques. I guess no one had heard about Japan’s lost decade.Anyway, reading the book and seeing the success GE had then under Welch, I was convinced of two things. One, he foresaw the two trends of globalisation and financialisation way earlier than others. He figured both the threats and opportunities they presented and moulded GE to take advantage of them. He did this better than anyone else who was running a large business then. Two, he realised that running a diversified, globally distributed enterprise requires a certain ‘way’. So, he codified it - bell curve for ranking employees, global training centres for creating a kind of manager, Six Sigma as the common language to solve everyday problems and a common scorecard to rate business performance. In his scheme of things, process and order were more important than individual enterprise and innovation. GE probably didn’t produce a single world-beating product during his time but they did make truckloads of money for shareholders by being more efficient and faster to market than their competitors. And that didn’t happen by just mindless shutting down of plants or fudging the books as Gelles seems to allege.    Coming back to the book, I have three problems with it.First, there’s no pause to consider the counterfactual turn of events. Had Welch not done what he did at GE, what would have been the alternative history? It was clear by the early 80s that cheaper, and often better, consumer durables and industrial products were coming into America from Japan and the Tiger economies of the far east. American labour was getting more expensive, especially the retirement funds of workers that were run often on a defined benefit programme. Remember the great American motor companies had to be bailed out after the GFC in 2009 because they couldn’t fund the pension benefits of their ex-employees anymore. Welch was realistic enough to understand there wasn’t going to be any breakthrough technology that could change the businesses that were cash cows of GE. A refrigerator is a refrigerator. They had become commodities. Welch took a hard look at it and asked why couldn’t GE take the battle to the challengers? Why couldn’t GE outdo them in being more efficient, using the same sources of labour as them and getting into newer businesses? The breakup of the USSR and the opening up of economies around the world helped him to go overseas. So did the steep fall in telecom rates that powered the BPO revolution. He also figured he could use the large cash flows his core businesses generate to build a financial institution. And he created a behemoth in GE Capital.These two decisions extended the lifespan of GE and, perhaps, saved a lot of jobs. GE might be thinking of splitting itself into three today but these are still reasonably profitable businesses employing thousands of workers. The graveyard of corporate America is packed with companies who once competed with GE in sectors as varied as electricals (Westinghouse, Whirlpool), packaging and plastics (Tyco), and household goods (Xerox, Kodak)…the list is long. They died because they didn’t do what GE did then. You can accuse Welch of being just a manager who got a couple of trends right and rode them but who didn’t innovate and build genre-defining products. That’s fine. Not being a gifted innovator isn’t really a moral failure. But Welch ran a management template that worked for its time. A lot that was good in that has helped other enterprises manage scale and complexity. He overdid things for sure and that toxic legacy of being obsessed over quarterly EPS targets, financial re-engineering to meet them and treating people as expenses is uniquely his too. But, on balance, he was responding to the incentives that he and GE had during that time.The problem with a lot of business management books is that they use the hindsight of success or failure to go back and find reasons for it. This is a useful exercise in history. And it should be only read as history. As one version or interpretation of events. The trouble is many of these books start peddling these as some kind of deeply researched scientific material. It is not science because every single one of them will fail the falsification principle of Popper to demarcate science from non-science. Pick any book that teaches the Toyota way or the Netflix method of managing people and apply them in another context. The success rate of any such application, however generously you may use the term, is still quite low. In fact, the moment I see a book written on the unique way a company does something, I realise the company has jumped the shark. Gelles’ argument about Welch being the one man responsible for breaking capitalism is as flawed as the many books urging companies to follow the GE way a couple of decades back. There’s no science or verifiable truth here.Second, the book has an America centric view of how Welch made things worse. Sure, Welch shut down plants and shipped jobs offshore. And you could argue that made lives of American workers worse. But that trend was already inevitable. I don’t know about you but I don’t think the pre-Welch era, say of the 70s, was some kind of golden age for capitalism. People were still protesting against inequality, wars and seeking global brotherhood. Inflation was high. Diversity in corporates was low. Politicians were being voted out of power because of how they fared on economy. Doesn’t sound like a golden age to me.Gelles blames Welch for hollowing out the industrial belt and increasing inequality in the American society. Maybe it is true. But what about the countries where Welch set up new shops? Without Welch, there wouldn’t have been millions of jobs created in places like India, China, the Philippines and Eastern Europe. In the mid-90s, GE was the biggest customer of the then-fledgling Indian IT companies. The likes of TCS, Wipro and Infosys scaled on back of GE business that at various times accounted for about a third of their revenues. By the late 90s, GE began the BPO boom in India and other companies followed. Almost every company would visit the GECIS centre in Gurgaon to see what’s possible to outsource in India. You could claim with some confidence that he created the most jobs in the history of independent India. I witnessed this first hand. An entire generation made a good living and gained global experience because of the platform GE created in India. There is a good argument then that he might have actually reduced global inequality because of his actions. GE was a global enterprise. Why should only American workers and equality in American society matter in judging his legacy?Lastly, it is easy to diss Friedman and his famous paper on maximising shareholder value without understanding him fully. Friedman didn’t advocate some kind of cut-throat capitalism where nothing else except profits mattered. He was a better thinker than that. I wrote about this a couple of years ago on the 50th anniversary of that Friedman paper and Raghuram Rajan’s assessment of it:Over the years it has been attacked and its central message discredited in the light of the global financial crisis. Even businesses are reluctant these days to invoke shareholder value maximisation as their goal. There have been calls for societal value maximisation, stakeholder wealth creation and conscious capitalism to replace the Friedman doctrine. All good intentions aside, nothing has truly replaced it in how businesses operate. What explains its enduring appeal? Three reasons:A simple and measurable metric: The shareholder value maximisation goal is easy to set and monitor. It helps that there is a common understanding of the metric. The alternatives are amorphous. It is difficult to understand what does maximising societal value entail, for instance. Who will define what society wants? Are societal objectives of India and the US similar?Rewarding the risk-takers: The shareholders invest risk capital in an enterprise. This willingness to take risks is what leads entrepreneurs to build new products, satisfy the consumers and create new jobs. The shareholders deserve the pursuit of maximum return by the firms for this risk they undertake. It is up to them what they do with these returns. They can invest it in newer enterprises or use it to improve the society as they deem fit. The management or anyone else should have no claim on how to invest the returns that belong to the shareholders.Shareholders are the residual claimants: Everyone who contributes to the value creation of an enterprise – the employees, the management and the customers – get their fixed claim on the value through compensation for their efforts, stock options and the value derived from the products or services offered by the enterprise. Only when these fixed claimants are served well, the value for the residual claimant (the shareholder) is maximised. So, the pursuit of shareholder value will by itself serve the other stakeholders well.Any kind of over-indexing on input metrics (like environment or society) instead of a residual metric like shareholder value runs the risk of the measure becoming a target and ceasing to be a good measure (Goodhart’s Law). The recent events around ESG investing and greenwashing are examples of this. See the Deutsche Bank story on this. More will follow.And to quote Friedman from his original article:“But the doctrine of “social responsibility” taken seriously would extend the scope of the political mechanism to every human activity. It does not differ in philosophy from the most explicitly collectivist doctrine. It differs only by professing to believe that collectivist ends can be attained without collectivist means. That is why, in my book “Capitalism and Freedom,” I have called it a “fundamentally subversive doctrine” in a free society, and have said that in such a society, there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception fraud.”   There is always a desire to ‘manage’ the economic system in a way that it allocates resources and rewards most efficiently. As we have seen over a few centuries now, this is a noble but flawed pursuit. It generates worse outcomes than a system that builds itself on fundamentals of human enterprise, behaviour and its response to incentives. There are many economic concepts that sound evil or counter-intuitive: efficient market mechanism, free trade, comparative advantage or Ricardian equivalence. But they work. There are reasons for market failures and there are extended periods of time when these failures are allowed to persist. But the beauty of spontaneous order is that the correction to its excesses is also built in. The correction is the time to learn from past mistakes and improve it. Not to call for discarding the system itself in favour of some kind of ‘planned design’. Welch was a remarkable manager – both a product of his times and someone who shaped his time. He pushed the boundaries in ways good and bad. That which was bad is already interred with his bones. The good must survive. India Policy Watch: Missing Pieces in the Jigsaw PuzzleInsights on burning policy issues in India— Pranay KotasthaneA popular way to think about strengthening the Indian Republic is to ponder on improving its institutions. However, this route often ends up in mere despondence over our many underperforming institutions. While confronting these demons is an absolute necessity, here’s another way to think about this issue: what are the meta-institutions that the Indian Republic is missing altogether?We aren’t talking here about institutions that don’t work, but institutions that don’t exist at all. And I’m not talking about the likes of a new sectoral regulator for cryptocurrencies, but about more important institutions, ones that could improve decision-making in governments across spheres.I don’t have a comprehensive list yet. However, there are at least three that I’ve heard many experts talk about.1. Parliament’s own think tankOf all the roles parliamentarians end up donning, our current structure equips them the least for the very function they exist: making well-designed laws in their constituents' interests. India’s MPs are not assigned any research budget or research personnel. Combine this congenital defect with the curse of the anti-defection law, and you get a structure that’s subservient to political party interests. Of course, some MPs do stand out despite these constraints, but it does appear that the odds are heavily stacked against them.Thankfully, a solution has emerged from civil society to fill this gaping hole: PRS Legislative Research — a 17-year old non-profit organisation that aims to provide independent and non-partisan research to the parliamentarians.However, just one such institution is not sufficient for an India-scale entity. What we need, in addition, is another much bigger research think tank of the Parliament, that’s paid from the Consolidated Fund of India and has researchers who develop deep expertise in specific areas over the years. Consider, for instance, the Congressional Research Service in the US. This federally-funded agency has over 600 employees who are specialists in a variety of policy domains.As the size of the Parliament increases after delimitation, and as policy issues keep getting more specialised, it’s imperative for India to invest in this missing institution.2. An independent fiscal councilThis institutional gap has been highlighted by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Finance Commissions. While India has an institution (the Comptroller and Accountant General) to audit policies that are already in action, there is no institution that makes an independent financial evaluation of government policies before they receive the final approval.The result is that tall promises of handouts in electoral manifestos of parties often become government policies swiftly, without any regard to the fiscal sustainability or opportunity cost assessments. A recent example is the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme which was implemented in 2015 after appearing in the 2014 election manifestos of both the major national parties.An independent fiscal council then is an institution that is supposed to do three things. One, evaluate the quality of budget forecasts given how there is a wide gap between budgeted estimates and actual expenditures. Two, develop cost estimates of budgetary proposals ex-ante. Ang three, monitor if fiscal rules are being adhered to.Dr Govinda Rao writes in The Hindu that the global experience with such institutions has been largely positive:A study by the IMF (“The Functions and Impact of Fiscal Councils”, July 2013), documents that the existence of IFIs is associated with stronger primary balances; countries with IFIs tend to have more accurate macroeconomic and budgetary forecasts; IFIs are likely to raise public awareness and raise the level of public debate on fiscal policy. Case studies in Belgium, Chile and the United Kingdom show that IFIs have significantly contributed to improved fiscal performances.In Belgium, the government is legally required to adopt the macroeconomic forecasts of the Federal Planning Bureau and this has significantly helped to reduce bias in these estimates. In Chile, the existence of two independent bodies on Trend GDP and Reference Copper Price has greatly helped to improve Budget forecasts. In the U.K., the Office for Budget Responsibility has been important in restoring fiscal sustainability. Cross-country evidence shows that fiscal councils exert a strong influence on fiscal performances, particularly when they have formal guarantees of independence.Clearly a meta-institution we are missing.3. An institution for vertical and horizontal bargainingThis idea again comes from Dr Govinda Rao. He writes in his recent book Studies of Indian Public Finance that India lacks an institution that can act as a credible umpire between various states, and between the states as a whole on one side and the union government on the other. The National Development Council created for this purpose is defunct, the Inter-State Council is a part of the union government, the Rajya Sabha is no longer the council of states in reality, and finance commissions are dissolved after making their recommendations. The result is that there is no institution that can truly champion cooperative federalism. The GST Council perhaps performs acts as a bargaining and negotiation platform in the limited area of indirect taxation. To manage India’s heterogeneity, a meta-institution that is dedicated to horizontal and vertical balance is imperative.Another big lesson here is that the view that India’s government is oversized is inaccurate. The Indian State is quite anaemic when it comes to staffing for its core functions. We need more institutions, not fewer.What are some more missing meta-institutions in the Indian Republic? Leave a comment.India Policy Watch: The Paradiplomacy OpportunityInsights on burning policy issues in India— Pranay KotasthaneNote these two developments over the last few weeks: Tamil Nadu was first off the blocks to send a relief consignment to the crisis-stricken Sri Lanka. And as many as three Chief Ministers—besides the sons of two other CMs—made their presence felt at the World Economic Forum in Davos.Moreover, chief ministerial visits to business capitals of the world are now commonplace. Virtually every Indian state now has its own global investor summit. And yes, two states (Punjab and Kerala) already have departments for non-resident Indians.Put all these developments together and it becomes clear that Indian states are also geopolitical and geoeconomic entities. In the past, I’ve written how Australia gets around its low diplomatic corps strength by allowing its states to have their own trade and investment offices in other countries. India too should take this path, and encourage state governments to have permanent trade and investment desks in important business centres of the world.This view is not a popular one. The policy orthodoxy believes that since foreign affairs is under the Union List of the Seventh Schedule in the constitution, states have no role to play. Besides, state governments having their own foreign policy is at odds with the popular “one nation, one X” idea.But in my view, economic diplomacy by Indian states can be beneficial to all relevant stakeholders. It is in the states’ interest because they understand their comparative advantages, needs and challenges far better than the union government. Thus, they can choose to invest in external economic relations that are suited to their conditions.Economic paradiplomacy can also benefit the investors as they get to directly engage with the entity that controls crucial variables for running businesses, such as land, labour, electricity, and law and order.And finally, this strategy can benefit the union government as well. It frees up the already strained capacity of the external affairs and commerce ministries for broader issues. The role of states in the India-Israel relationship demonstrates that there is also a political utility:“Full diplomatic ties were established between India and Israel in 1992. Even after this move, collaboration with Israel was seen as a hot potato issue in India. The domestic implications of taking sides in what was essentially a religious conflict was a significant impediment to the ties taking off. A few Members of Parliament criticised this step on humanitarian grounds, arguing that New Delhi should have waited until an independent Palestinian state came into being. Some members of the ruling Indian National Congress feared that this step would be detrimental to their electoral appeal to the Indian Muslim community. The Babri Masjid riots further thickened the plot and the Indian government slowed down the pace of the partnership.It was under these circumstances that the Indian states were allowed to expand Indian collaboration with Israel. Traditionally, Indian states were kept out of India’s foreign policy debates. Even the Constitution assigned all matters of legislation related to foreign policy exclusively to the Union government. Consequently, the proliferation of collaboration between Indian states with Israel was a bold and unique experiment by the PV Narasimha Rao government. While this allowed relations to prosper, it also avoided the politico-religious undertones that would have been hard to suppress had this engagement been anchored by the Union government alone.”And so, economic diplomacy by the states is a win-win-win. For an India with global interests, its states have to come to the party. Should they be invited?HomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy matters[Book] Dr Govinda Rao’s Studies in Indian Public Finance is a must-read for policy enthusiasts. I really hope OUP prices it such that the common Public can Finance the book purchase. Nevertheless, the book links to some classics in public finance. Here’s the compilation: Public Principles of Public Debt by James Buchanan, Public Finance and Public Choice: Two Contrasting Visions of the State by James Buchanan and Richard Musgrave, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups by Mancur Olson, Public Finance in Theory and Practice by Richard and Peggy Musgrave, The Power to Tax: Analytic Foundations of a Fiscal Constitution by Brennan and Buchanan, The Calculus of Consent by James Buchanan, The Road to Serfdom by Hayek, and Democracy, Dictatorship, and Development by Mancur Olson.[Prediction Market] We’ve written previously about the utility of prediction markets in foreign policy. Check out this US-government project that is explicitly meant to ‘build a collective foresight capability that can provide U.S. Government policymakers with an accurate and nuanced rendering of the future’.[Report] Putting the Periphery at the Center by Happymon Jacob makes some excellent recommendations on Indian Paradiplomacy. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit publicpolicy.substack.com

On this week's CoinGeek Weekly Livestream, the host Kurt Wuckert Jr. interviewed none other than Ian Grigg, the famous financial cryptographer. Referring to Grigg as the "wealth of information about science and cryptography," Kurt requested Grigg to speak about his professional journey thus far.Grigg concisely explained his research endeavors that began in 1995 with the "stock exchange, aka digital cash system," and then working with the Eagle Group in Florida. Grigg and Kurt then spoke about smart contracts and how they differ from the Ricardian contracts invented by Grigg in 1996. Grigg clarified that both contracts are related; however, they work differently. When asked by one of the viewers to explain the "Project Prometheus," Grigg explained: "Several people wondered in 2013-14 who was Satoshi; a few of us decided not to search for him because we wanted to respect the person's privacy. That is how the group was named "Prometheus." According to Grigg, people who don't believe Dr. Wright is Satoshi have not done enough research. Responding to a question regarding AI, Grigg stated that companies such as Google, Facebook, and Apple should create accurate predictions with the help of AI technology because they have adequate resources. Grigg pointed out that everybody wants authority, but only a few authorities are out there to do specific tasks. "What we need is specific blockchain expertise," he noted. Grigg concluded by announcing that his new paper on AI and book citing his work on identity will be published soon.

Byrne generates one of the highest insights per unit of speech or writing I've come across. Some of what we covered + highlights: Interest rates and bubbles Why interest rates have been declining over the long run Low interest rates and private / public market valuations Structural sellside optimism Are Google and Facebook undervalued Signs we might be in a bubble This was recorded months before the Gamestop fiasco (!): “so you can find people on wall street bets who are just insanely exuberant and who are clearly just deranged gamblers who are buying out of the money call options and pyramiding up their gains until they get wiped out” On the Buy Now Pay Later phenomenon Why Australia? All about CAC, baby! “My view on that is that in FinTech, the dominant factor is always customer acquisition cost. A lot of people come up with interesting ideas for financial products that are interesting to the kinds of people who dream up new financial products. Then they figure out that very few people are interested in a financial product as such people are interested in free money” How FinTechs typically unravel “A lot of that comes down to the fact that it's hard to market financial products, because it's just really hard to create an ad advertising something that is so ephemeral. You can't show someone on TV having insurance. You can't show a picture of alone.” Byrne's journey Learning to trade stocks in high school Dropping out of college Realising he could be a tech analysis in a time before tech analysts – finding his niche and making it his thing How he ended up writing full time The natural narrowing of focus in finance careers What he learned living in a former crack den in New York. One roommate was a currency trader who just listened to techno and day-traded the British pound all day: “I think practicing the ability to just grind out the normal thing at a fairly high quality level is a useful background for doing something different” (Byrne uses the Beatles and Picasso as examples)" Ricardian comparative advantage: I first really appreciated Ricardian comparative advantage the first time I paid a laundromat to do my laundry and fold my laundry and while I was there, I was able to write an article that paid for the cost of the laundry. Investing What's an overlooked asset class? On investing discipline: “I try to be very disciplined about having stop losses, just so that I don't talk myself into really dumb reasons to own something or short something.” Momentum investing: “Often being able to say, I agree only more so is actually a pretty powerful way to find things that don't look contrarian. That's why they are contrarians.” Why shorting is such a hard game (note John Hempton!) Self-perpetuating mechanisms for credit bubbles, and how in the short term they lead to volatility but in the long term can lead to stability and prosperity Question from Patrick McKenzie: I believe this is called a “lobster pot”: “In addition to being long short tech stocks and doing some stuff with futures from time to time, I have one company that is really tiny, illiquid enough that it does not trade every day. It's just a very deep value stock that I bought and have resolved to not pay attention to until the CEO dies and the company will presumably get liquidated then.” Impressive companies, determinant optimism and recursion Whether kids have made Byrne more or less ambitious How the Anglosphere, largely surrounded by bodies of water as it is (UK, US, Australia / NZ) is inoculated from the existential risk of tanks rolling through, which happens from time to time basically everywhere else On the meritocracy / nepotism tradeoff / synthesis What Byrne disagrees with Bryan Caplan and Peter Thiel on “You basically need a lot of natural Republicans to run a socialist country”

Mark Jacobsen is a professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.  With a focus on automobiles and featured in numerous journals, he considers policymakers' choices in the context of the broader economy, showing how factors like Ricardian rents, untaxed activity in the informal sector, and the presence of green preferences can act to change the type of environmental policy that is most efficient.“The Use of Regression Statistics to Analyze Imperfect Pricing Policies” (with Christopher Knittel, James Sallee, and Arthur van Benthem), Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 128, No. 5, 2020.“Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Fuel-Economy Standards” (with Antonio Bento, Christopher Knittel, and Arthur van Benthem), in NBER Book Series: Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy, Eds. M. Kotchen, J. H. Stock, and C. Wolfram, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020.“Cost-Effective Climate Policies,” in Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions, Ed. V. Ramanathan, Oakland, CA: Regents of the University of California, 2019.“Flawed Analyses of U.S. Auto Fuel Economy Standards,” (with Antonio Bento, Kenneth Gillingham, Christopher Knittel, Benjamin Leard, Joshua Linn, Virginia McConnell, David Rapson, James Sallee, Arthur van Benthem, and Kate Whitefoot), Science, Vol. 362, No. 6419, 2018.“Environmental Policy in the Presence of an Informal Sector” (with Antonio Bento and Anthony Liu), Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Vol. 90, 2018.“Public Policy and the Private Provision of Public Goods Under Heterogeneous Preferences” (with Jacob LaRiviere and Michael Price), Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2017.“Vehicle Scrappage and Gasoline Policy,” (with Arthur van Benthem), American Economic Review, Vol. 105, No. 3, 2015.

Ever worried about how future taxes will impact you and you reduced your spending? In this episode, we will talk about a theory that explains this behavior of yours. So sit back and get ready to expand your knowledge....

Andy and Sean are joined by Edwad @readcapital and Cordelia @cozyunoist, the confirmed superstars of #heinrichtwitter and co-hosts of the Reel Abstractions podcast to discuss Karl (Heinrich) Marx's 1865 address to the 1st International called 'Value, Price and Profit.' As anti-Marxist communists steeped in Marxology, they help us confront this seemingly simple text for what it is - a fraction of Marx's total critique from a snapshot of time, and a Marx at his most Ricardian - which opens a conversation on: the difference between political economy and critical theory, the usefulness of Marx for communist theory, and the ambiguities that exist even in the mature theory we've inherited today. This is a challenging episode (we stand in awe at the Reel Abstractions crew's grasp of the material) but well worth a listen. song: Green Day - Nice Guys Finish Last

Richard III (1483-85) has been portrayed as inhuman, tyrannical, treacherous and cruel. He had the monumental misfortune of character assassination by the dynasty that followed him determined to blacken his name. It will unquestionably be remembered as one of the most famous and consequential reigns in English history. CHARACTERS Richard III – King of England Edward IV – King of England, brother of Richard Edward V – King of England, son of Edward VI Anne Neville – Queen of England, wife of Richard III Elizabeth Woodville – Queen of England, wife of Edward IV George, duke of Clarence – brother of Richard and Edward Duke of York – Father of Richard Cecily Neville – Mother of Richard Prince Edward – son of Richard Richard of Shrewsbury – son of Edward IV Elizabeth of York – daughter of Edward IV Henry VI – former Lancastrian King of England Margaret – former Lancastrian Queen of England, wife of Henry VI Earl of Warwick – nobleman nicknamed the Kingmaker Earl Rivers – brother of Elizabeth Woodville, tutor and uncle of Edward V Duke of Norfolk – loyalist of Richard William Hastings – loyalist of Richard Duke of Buckingham – loyalist of Richard Ralph Shaa – pro-Ricardian theologian Sir John Cheyne – knight loyal to Henry Tudor William Brandon – Henry Tudor's standard bearer Earl of Oxford – commander loyal to Henry Tudor William Colyngbourne – covert ally of Henry Tudor Henry Percy – Earl of Northumberland Thomas Stanley – Earl of Derby, husband of Margaret Beaufort Charles VIII – King of France Chroniclers Dominic Mancini Vergil Francis Bacon Commynes Croyland William Shakespeare – playwright of Tudor England Characters from the past Richard II – former King of England Edward II – former King of England John of Gaunt – son of Edward III and ancestor of the Lancastrian claimants CREDITS Music: Winter Night by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com) Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Tudor Consort – 04 – Palestrina – Credo – Missa Sicut_lilium_inter_spinas Alanmckinney – JCB operating on construction site Black snow – sword slice Soundmary – wild horses running Dan Mitch3ll – distant horns eneasz – wooden door smash open metzik – medieval market Omar Alvarado – five heavy knocks on bedroom door 2 lg – torrential rain

Charlie and Joanna Hickson (First Of The Tudors; The Tudor Crown; The Lady Of The Ravens) discuss the royal and noble individuals of the War of the Roses, the women who made an impact, the ever-present question of who killed the princes in the tower, and, on another topic entirely, using weasels to prevent conception. Please note that the question about the fear of pregnancy and childbirth includes a couple of mentions of a weasel's particulars. Some podcast apps do not show description links properly unless the listener subscribes to the podcast. If you can't click the links below and don't wish to subscribe, copy and paste the following address into your browser to access the episode's page on my blog: http://wormhole.carnelianvalley.com/podcast/episode-24-joanna-hickson John Constable Orford Castle Recent photograph of Joanna at Orford Wikipedia's article on Jackanory (Joanna's episodes were 2422-2426) Pembroke Castle Carmarthen Castle Wikipedia's article on Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time James Butler (the 'fleeing' Earl of Wiltshire) The blog of The Ravenmaster, Chris Skaife Wikipedia's article on Joan Vaux Frank Cadogan Cowper - 'Erasmus and Thomas More Visit the Children of Henry VII' (1910) The GoodReads page for Alison Weir's book on Elizabeth of York Wikipedia's article on the Trotula Question Index 00:51 You had a holiday recently?... 01:24 Tell us about your young adult novel 04:23 Why Jasper Tudor? 09:48 How did you go about creating Jane Hywel? 12:33 You are not a Ricardian... 14:11 Who do you think killed the princes in the Tower? 17:06 Is your interest in Henry VII woven into your thoughts of Richard III, or are they separate? 27:06 Do you think that Henry VII would have got to the throne without Margaret Beaufort's input? 31:56 You seem to me to place a distinct emphasis on filling in the gaps where women are concerned... 36:38 Tell us about the inspiration for the ravens and how you came to make them a central part of the novel 39:15 Tell us more about Joan 42:20 Did you find any primary sources related to the fear of pregnancy and childbirth? 44:05 How did you come to fictionise Elizabeth of York? 45:21 What's next? Purchase Links First Of The Tudors: Amazon UK Amazon US Amazon Canada Waterstones Hive Barnes & Noble IndieBound Indigo Chapters The Tudor Crown: Amazon UK Amazon US Amazon Canada Waterstones Hive Barnes & Noble IndieBound Indigo Chapters The Lady Of The Ravens: Amazon UK Amazon US Amazon Canada Waterstones Hive Barnes & Noble IndieBound Indigo Chapters The Agincourt Bride: Amazon UK Amazon US Amazon Canada Waterstones Hive Barnes & Noble IndieBound Indigo Chapters The Tudor Bride: Amazon UK Amazon US Amazon Canada Waterstones Hive Barnes & Noble IndieBound Indigo Chapters Red Rose, White Rose: Amazon UK Amazon US Amazon Canada Waterstones Hive Barnes & Noble IndieBound Indigo Chapters I am an Amazon Associate and earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.  Likewise IndieBound. Photograph used with permission from the author.

This newsletter is really a weekly public policy thought-letter. While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought-letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways. It seeks to answer just one question: how do I think about a particular public policy problem/solution?PS: If you enjoy listening instead of reading, we have this edition available as an audio narration courtesy the good folks at Ad-Auris. If you have any feedback, please send it to us.India Policy Watch #1: 50 Years Of That Friedman NYT ArticleInsights on burning policy issues in India— RSJOn September 13, 1970, Milton Friedman wrote his famous piece on the social responsibility of business in The New York Times. The clarity of Friedman’s thinking and his powerful articulation of the doctrine of shareholder value maximisation has made it, arguably, the most influential business article of all time. Friedman scoffs at businesses talking of ‘social responsibility’ suggesting any attempt to do so will turn political that will force the individual to conform to the more general social interest. Who determines this social interest? In the hands of a dictator or a demagogue, this decision can be detrimental to society. It is a compelling article. I would suggest you read it before you dismiss it as free-market fundamentalism. Friedman concludes:“But the doctrine of “social responsibility” taken seriously would extend the scope of the political mechanism to every human activity. It does not differ in philosophy from the most explicitly collectivist doctrine. It differs only by professing to believe that collectivist ends can be attained without collectivist means. That is why, in my book “Capitalism and Freedom,” I have called it a “fundamentally subversive doctrine” in a free society, and have said that in such a society, there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception fraud.”   Enduring AppealOver the years it has been attacked and its central message discredited in the light of the global financial crisis. Even businesses are reluctant these days to invoke shareholder value maximisation as their goal. There have been calls for societal value maximisation, stakeholder wealth creation and conscious capitalism to replace the Friedman doctrine. All good intentions aside, nothing has truly replaced it in how businesses operate. What explains its enduring appeal? Three reasons:A simple and measurable metric: The shareholder value maximisation goal is easy to set and monitor. It helps that there is a common understanding of the metric. The alternatives are amorphous. It is difficult to understand what does maximising societal value entail, for instance. Who will define what society wants? Are societal objectives of India and the US similar?Rewarding the risk takers: The shareholders invest risk capital in an enterprise. This willingness to take risk is what leads entrepreneurs to build new products, satisfy the consumers and create new jobs. The shareholders deserve the pursuit of maximum return by the firms for this risk they undertake. It is up to them what they do with these returns. They can invest it in newer enterprises or use it to improve the society as they deem fit. The management or anyone else should have no claim on how to invest the returns that belong to the shareholders.Shareholders are the residual claimants: Everyone who contributes to the value creation of an enterprise – the employees, the management team and the customers – get their fixed claim on the value through compensation for their efforts, stock options and the value derived from the products or services offered by the enterprise. Only when these fixed claimants are served well, the value for the residual claimant (the shareholder) is maximised. So, the pursuit of shareholder value will by itself serve the other stakeholders well.Rajan’s ReassessmentPromarket, a publication of the Stigler Centre at Chicago Booth School of Business, is marking the 50-year anniversary of the Friedman article with a debate on the social responsibility of business on its pages. Eminent academists like Oliver Hart, Luigi Zingales and Lucian Bebchuk have written with depth and intellect on the relevance of the Friedman doctrine in today’s times. This week Raghuram Rajan weighed in on the debate with an article titled “50 Years Later, It’s Time to Reassess”. Rajan takes a clear-eyed view on what has worked for the Friedman doctrine and where it is fraying. He repeats the usual points that we have listed above in favour of the doctrine. Additionally, he emphasises the political argument of Friedman for shareholder value maximisation that seems relevant in the current times when we are debating the enormous clout of big tech in our lives. Rajan writes:“Finally, Milton Friedman thought that there was a political argument for shareholder value maximization, which keeps the role of the government and the role of the corporation separate. He thought that was important because he felt that corporate social responsibility was a backdoor way for special interests to push what they could not get through Parliament and therefore make rules for the firm which they could not make through legislation. In some sense, this is a very important argument because it says that sometimes, these pressures can be anti-democratic rather than pro-democratic—that because you’re frustrated in Congress or in Parliament, you might try to push that stuff through the backdoor by directly targeting corporations.”    But Rajan believes this separation of business from politics that Friedman advocated has turned into its primary problem:“And that leads to what I think is the deepest problem with Milton Friedman: shareholder value maximization means completely turning a tin ear to politics. It sounds sinister. It sounds pro-rich. It sounds evil, even if it may be the right thing to do for society under many circumstances.”I’m not quite sure why something that sounds evil while it might be the “right thing to do for society” needs to change. There are many economic concepts that sound evil or counter-intuitive – efficient market mechanism, free trade, comparative advantage or Ricardian equivalence. They shouldn’t be discarded or changed because of it. Instead, they need to be explained better.But Rajan goes ahead proposing an alternative:“The alternative, in my view, is to maximize the value of long-term investors in the firm. This is different from the Business Roundtable statement, in that you can identify who these long-term stakeholders are. If you are a firm with a lot of impulse customers, they’re not your long-term investors—they come in and buy as they wish. If, however, you have long-term employees, they are long-term investors because their sweat equity is embedded in the firm. Similarly, shareholders, long-term debt holders, long-term suppliers, these are long-term stakeholders. A firm could say, when forced to choose between two stakeholders: I will choose the action that enhances the overall value of these stakeholders.”There is a problem with this formulation – how will you know from the start who will be a long-term investor? For Rajan, the ‘impulse customers’ aren’t long-term investors. But won’t the impulse customer of today be a firm’s long-term customer over time? A similar argument can be made for long-term shareholders or long-term suppliers. They all will have to start somewhere in developing a relationship with a firm. Also, how do you define the length of time that will qualify a relationship as long-term? Not surprisingly, this alternative to shareholder value suggested by Rajan meets the same fate as others. It sounds good on paper but fails to be specific.Rajan comes around to it by the end of his piece:“Corporate boards should take pride in the investors they stand for. Being nice to everyone is, however, infeasible, meaningless, and simply deflection. That is what I take away from Milton Friedman.”Friedman’s doctrine remains the most elegant and practical way for firms to pursue its objectives that deliver the most value to society. For Friedman, enterprises in a competitive market pursuing shareholder maximisation will do well for society. But a monopoly will have to do more. As he wrote:“The participant in a competitive market has no appreciable power to alter the exchange, he is hardly visible as a separate entity, hence it is hard to argue he has any ‘social responsibility.”“The monopolist is visible and has power. It is easy to argue that he should discharge his power not solely to further his own interest but to further socially desirable ends.”So, a firm operating in a competitive market is free to pursue shareholder value maximisation. The shareholders can define the value differently in today’s world that goes beyond monetary rewards. This could include the environment, sustainable growth, or social equity. But for Friedman, this can’t be imposed by others on the shareholders. The decision has to be that of the shareholders alone.A Framework a Week: What Made the US Enable China’s Rise?Tools for thinking public policy— Pranay KotasthaneThis question that has been bugging me over the last few months: what explains that the US — now single-mindedly focused on countering on PRC’s rise — aided and abetted the PRC’s rise in the first place? Despite its enormous intellectual horsepower, why wasn't the US able to anticipate and mount a response to the PRC challenge long before?As it turns out, an incumbent great power enabling the rise of its own future rival is not an anomaly. In fact, that’s the default case. At least that’s the core argument of an excellent book Over the Horizon: Time, Uncertainty, and the Rise of Great Powers by David Edelstein (You can read a top-notch book review by my colleague Aditya Ramanathan here). The book presents a framework that manages to explain the US-China relationship quite well.The core argument in Edelstein’s words is that:… uncertainty about the future reinforces the pressures on state leaders to focus on the short term. Leaders of existing great powers are disinclined to expend considerable resources on an uncertain long-term threat. When existing powers focus on the short term, mutually beneficial cooperation with rising powers becomes more likely. Conversely, the more state leaders become alerted to the potentially threatening long-term intentions of a rising power, the less likely cooperation in the short term with a rising great power becomes.This is a counter-intuitive proposition. Offensive realism theory argues that all that matters is relative power. Regardless of a rising power’s intentions, its rise is reason enough for an incumbent power to confront the contender as soon as possible. And yet, the empirical approach of declining powers has been quite the opposite. European powers cooperated with Bismarckian Germany, Britain capitulated to the American rise, European states, again, co-operated with Germany in the inter-war period, and finally, the US supported China’s entry to WTO and turned a blind eye to PRC’s aggressive actions and increasing capabilities for nearly fifteen years before executing a u-turn.The author argues that this divergence from theory can be explained by taking into account two more variables. Not just relative power, but perceived intentions, and time horizons of states together explain if a declining power will confront, co-operate, or compete with a rising power. The framework that brings together all this is shown below.When a rising power has a long-term focus and a declining power has a short-term focus, the two end up co-operating rather than contesting. This configuration occurs, for instance, when rising powers adopt a “hide our capacities and bide our time” approach. They focus on building long-term capabilities instead of attracting undue attention of the incumbent powers towards them. This is what PRC under Deng Xiaoping and Germany under Bismarck did. If successful, this strategy makes declining powers discount long-term threats and instead focus on short-term gains through co-operation. This is precisely what happened between the US and PRC after the Sino-Soviet split. PRC resisted overt provocation throughout the 80s and 90s, while the US companies and consumers benefited from PRC’s manufacturing prowess. By 2010, PRC’s time horizons changed. Its aggression towards its neighbours signalled that it was now focused on consolidating its position in the short-term. Meanwhile, the US was still focused on the short-term horizon. The aftereffects of 9/11 still loomed large, and the US strategic thinking was preoccupied with other issues — Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, and Iran. The result was a mixture of skirmishes and pragmatic cooperation between the US and PRC.By 2016, PRC’s continuing arrogance against its neighbours, the BRI ambition, attempts at influencing politics in countries such as Australia, and rapid buildup of technological power meant that the US was forced to extend its time horizon and look at PRC as a structural adversary. The result is that we are heading towards a preventive “war” — a scenario where the US is confronting PRC directly and provocatively not by force (yet) but in trade and technology domains. This framework also explains that a preventive “war” scenario is not inevitable. If there is a rethink in PRC’s approach, a shift to either of the remaining three quadrants is possible. With Xi Jinping at the helm, it looks unlikely though. Despite the perception that PRC thinks long-term, Xi is operating with an extremely short-term time horizon and inviting pushbacks from a host of countries as a result.India Policy Watch #2: No Looking Back On Agriculture ReformsInsights on burning policy issues in India —RSJThe Lok Sabha passed three bills relating to agriculture this week. These bills replace the existing ordinances that came into effect in June. These bills are part of the agriculture reforms package that was unveiled by the FM in May this year. The bills will now be tabled in the Rajya Sabha on Sunday. These reforms were long due. Despite the obvious failures of the state in the farming sector, successive governments balked at reforms. The entrenched ‘aristocracy’ of rich farmers, commission agents and farmer leaders thwarted all attempts. This time is different. For once the numerical advantage of this government and the political capital of the PM are being put to use for structural reforms that will serve us well in the long-term. The small and marginal farmers have suffered under the benevolent tyranny of the state. These reforms will liberate the sector. Yet, there is a minor political storm brewing. Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), a long-time ally of BJP in the state of Punjab, has opposed the legislations. On Thursday, its lone representative in the Union Cabinet, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, resigned. The SAD leader, Sukhbir Singh Badal, spoke against the bill in Lok Sabha:“These bills have many provisions that go against farmers’ interests. We have repeatedly asked the government that please address the apprehensions of farmers, but the government had done nothing. Therefore, I oppose these bills.”There are farmer protests in Punjab and Haryana against the bills. There is a possibility it could spread to other states. The usual bogey of capitalists and big businesses is being brought up. This is a government that’s especially sensitive to this kind of criticism. We hope it stays the course and uses its formidable skill in setting the narrative to sell these reforms to the farming community. Farmers Aren’t FreeThe reasons for the protests are instructive in understanding why critical reforms in any sector in India remain difficult to implement. A vocal minority that stands to lose the most has organized itself to protest while the majority for whom the benefits are diffused is silent. To understand the reforms, it is important to understand the ‘unconstitutionality’ of the current system:Farmers can only sell their produce at the state APMC registered mandis. There is no freedom to sell produce outside of the mandis. There’s no freedom to conduct inter-state trade for the farmers. There is only a single buyer – the state. There is no competition. The state sets the price of the produce. The state has its approved ‘middlemen’ to facilitate the process of buying from the farmers. Since the farmers are often small and poor, their ability to reach the mandi, to negotiate the byzantine paperwork of license fees and commission, and store their produce is limited. There’s a long chain of small and big traders and commission agents who fill in to provide these services. This is a deeply entrenched cartel that buys low from the farmers and bids up the price to the wholesaler. The farmers are at their mercy while the end consumers pay for the cartelisation. The evergreen anecdote of farmers making Rs. 2 for every kilo of onions they grow while the consumers shelling Rs. 80 a kilo is a result of this. There’s no freedom for the farmer to sell their labour for a price through a contract. This is a freedom guaranteed by the constitution to every citizen. Except the farmer. So, small and marginal farmers can’t enter into contracts with private buyers of farm produce to aggregate their produce and sell it a pre-determined price. There are restrictions on how much stock of ‘essential commodities’ can be held by farmer or a trader. The essential commodities include cereals, potatoes, onions, oilseeds and pulses. So, the market mechanism of stabilising price through supply management and storage isn’t available. There’s no incentive for players to set up modern warehouses and cold supply chains for these commodities. The result is frequent price fluctuations and criminal wastage of food. The Sum Of All Good IntentionsThe dismal state of Indian agriculture bears no repetition. The farm income growth has been stagnant for the last 6 years. The small and marginal farmers who constitute 86 per cent of India’s peasantry barely make a living out of farming with average per capita annual income below Rs. 100,000. About 45 farmers die by suicide on an average every day. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) buys the produce at the minimum support prices (MSP) from the mandis and distributes it at a subsidised rate through the public distribution system (PDS). This subsidy bill has grown to unmanageable level. The FCI borrows from National Small Savings Funds (NSSF) to keep its operations going. It is estimated this loan will rise to Rs. 3.5 lakh crores in FY ‘21 from Rs. 2.5 lakh crores in FY ’20. Millions of ordinary Indians trust NSSF with their lifelong savings. It is anybody’s guess when FCI will be able to pay back NSSF. If this appears like a giant Ponzi scheme, that’s what it is. The food grains stocked at FCI are at an all-time high but there’s no market mechanism for its distribution when people needed it the most during the pandemic. They had to wait for the largesse of the state for the stored grains to reach them. This is a broken system. Even if you set out to create a dysfunctional system, you’d have struggled to reach here.Who in their right minds would want this structure to continue? Who has it helped except entrenched cartels and a few dynasties of ‘farmer leaders’ who have built a system of patronage? It is the established rural structures that’s protesting. That doesn’t want to let go. They must be ignored. How We Got Here?The obvious question that comes up is why did we opt for such a system? The answer is that old Voldemort of all public policy choices in India – good intentions. The colonial powers had systematically exploited Indian farmers to the point of destitution. Nehru was taken in by Fabian socialism that was in fashion during that time. His first visit to USSR in 1927 and the subsequent success of Stalin’s first five-year plan in state-controlled agriculture strengthened his views. Then there was the 1943 Bengal famine. The political and cultural impact of the famine still persists. A large part of our permanent suspicion of private capital and markets can be traced to the famine and the perception of how rich traders and merchants hoarded food grains and profiteered while millions died of starvation. The plays, songs and films of the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) left a deep imprint in our popular culture about the apathy of capitalism. This informed our public debate and politics in a manner where the economic right was forever tainted with the colonial anti-poor and anti-farmer philosophy. That’s why there was no trace of the market mechanism when laws for the farm sector were drafted after independence.Sen On FamineIt is worth taking a short detour on famines here. Amartya Sen’s famous work on Bengal famine blamed the lack of accountability of the colonial government that didn’t have to face elections as the primary reason for the starvation deaths. His insight was simple and profound. Famines aren’t a food availability problem. They are ‘entitlement failures’ that can happen with even minor imbalances of production or some unintended effects of government policy. Sen defined entitlement as:“The set of alternative commodity bundles that a person can command in a society using the totality of rights and opportunities that he or she faces.”The entitlement set is the range of goods and services she can acquire by exchanging or converting her resources or labour. In famines, these entitlement sets fail to provide her food in exchange thus setting in starvation. In case of Bengal famine, the proximate cause of entitlement failure was the inflation caused by the WW2 where the food prices rose by 300 per cent while farm wages rose by 30 per cent. This failure was exacerbated by the refusal on part of the colonial government to freely distribute food grains that were available in abundance. We haven’t moved too far away from that reality today despite the best intentions of the state to help farmers. Stay The CourseNotwithstanding the obvious failures of our agriculture policies and the relative success of the market mechanism in other sectors, we raise the spectre of capitalists and big businesses harming our farmers whenever efforts at structural reforms are discussed. The farmers have been for long in the grip of the predatory state. These reforms will empower farmers. The government must ride over the resistance and set the farmers free.    Addendum— Pranay KotasthaneAny reform that is even remotely seen to impact the MSP gravy train is bound to face opposition from a host of incumbent beneficiaries. One, the farmers growing the 22 crops backed by the MSP. Two, the traders getting a percentage of the MSP. And three, the state governments making money by charging hefty commissions for the sale of produce at APMCs. None of this is surprising.That apart, there are at least two other critiques that merit serious attention.The timing critique. Agriculture in India is a sob story even in the best of times. And here we are, in the midst of an unprecedented supply and demand shock caused by COVID-19. So any reform that might remotely lead to lower incomes because of a dilution of the MSP promise is bound to face the question: why now? Can’t the cognitive maps of those losing out be aligned to absorb the short-term losses? The credibility critique. It’s tough to take a government seriously that claims it is liberating farmers even as it has no qualms in banning onion exports simultaneously. The fact that these legislations say nothing about the impact on the existing procurement price mechanisms has led to suspicions about government intentions. As Mekhala Krishnamurthy writes in The Print:..instead of building up the confidence to develop a comprehensive framework for agricultural reform for these states, with a credible time horizon and coordinated support for farmers, the position on agricultural reforms has become further vitiated and volatile. Even if the three farm sector Bills do not directly legislate on MSP and procurement policy, it is simply not tenable to spearhead major national reforms in agricultural markets in India without making room for detailed deliberations on the future of where and how price support and procurement policies fit in. Moreover, not having taken state governments into confidence calls into question the implementation credibility of these legislations.So, what remains to be seen is how the government signals credibility amidst an economic crisis for a long-pending reform. This story is not over, not just yet.HomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy matters[Article] Oliver Hart in Promarket on ‘How Shareholders Don’t Always Want To Maximize Shareholder Value’. [Article] Ashok Gulati in The Indian Express on why this is a 1991 moment for agriculture.[Podcast] We have an All Things Policy episode on Opportunity Cost neglect in Public Policy.[Paper] Dani Rodrik and Stephen Walt present their vision of the future world order.That’s all for this weekend. Read and share. Get on the email list at publicpolicy.substack.com

Bio: Professor Leachman is interested in studying the subjects of international trade, exchange rates, fiscal policy, and international macroeconomics. In conducting her research, she often incorporates intertemporal models, multicointegration and sustainability. Her current research project explores the political economy of intertemporal budgeting. She recently collaborated with G Rosas, A Bester, and P. Lange to complete a study on, “The Political Economy of Budget Deficits,” and worked with the same team on the project entitled, “Multicointegration and Sustainability of Fiscal Practices.” She has also teamed up with Bill Francis to publish the works, “Twin Deficits: Apparition or Reality?” and “Multicointegration Analysis and the Sustainability of Foreign Debt.” One of her earlier works, executed with Michael Thorpe, was a study on, “External Balance in the Small Open Economy of Australia.” She has also published on such subjects as capital market integration, optimum corporate capital structure, and Ricardian equivalence. More recently, Dr. Leachman has turned her attention to creative writing. Specifically, she has written a memoir about growing up in the South, football, and her father's death from CTE. The book titled, "The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen," will be released in May of 2018. As a result of these efforts, Dr. Leachman is currently working on framing the legal and ethical issues surrounding football and the issue of informed consent. Lori Leachman is also the author of memoir about growing up in the South, in a football family, and her father's death from CTE. Her, father, Lamar Leachman, coached in the NFL for 14 years and won a Super Bowl coaching for the NY Giants. However, at the end of his life he suffered a long decline form CTE. This book tells that story as well as her family's love of the sport, and quirkiness of the South. The book titled “The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen” is available on Amazon and at Barnesandnobel.com. You can check out the book at her web site : www.lorileachman.net Professor Lori Leachman brings her career's focus on international economics and her understanding of international trade importance and macro-fiscal budgeting to explain how the global community is navigating these times. She explains What are some important points in her career that have led to her current studies, Why a broader tax base and good tax collection processes are key to a healthy debt-to-GDP ratio, and How they U.S. is fairing in such terms and why different approaches might improve its situation. Lori Leachman is an author and a professor of economics at Duke University. She began her career looking at the openness of economies and the degree of integration in financial markets. She then moved to currency and exchange markets and advantages of international trade. She studied how exchange rates evolved together and whether currency exchange actually worked—such as when the central back is buying or selling currency. She also studied the anticipatory nature of financial markets and international trade importance and imbalance of payments. Most recently, she's focused on macro-fiscal processes and budgeting, namely which countries ran persistent large deficits and accumulated large volumes of debt and which countries did not. She talks about her findings and world finances more generally such as the importance of creating hierarchy in the budget process. She specifically talks about the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio, what's problematic, and how the U.S. uses the privilege of the dollar. She discusses all this in terms of how COVID is affecting systems and what we might expect in the future. For more, see her website at Duke, econ.duke.edu/people/lori-leachman, and email her with leachman@econ.duke.edu. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK

In this show we talk about David Ricardo's law of rents. And we examine how rent prices are set. Have you ever heard a business owner blame a price increase for their goods or services on increases in the cost of rent? Did you ever wonder if the price of a movie ticket went up because the theater's rent went up? Or do you think perhaps the rent when up in response to rises in the price of movie tickets? Which one is it? Is it possible to know? It turns out there is an answer and it was discovered by David Ricardo (1772-1823) British Parliamentarian/political economist and laid out in his most famous work Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817) Ricardian fields example.

For this week’s episode, we spoke to Steve Pomfret, CEO at Cygnetise. Steve describes himself as a “process guy” with over 18 years of experience in bringing about operational change (efficiency and de-risking) at reputed banks and brokerage firms. After learning about blockchain, Steve spotted an opportunity to apply his skills and learnings together with blockchain to streamline processes within the financial ecosystem.  Presently, Cygnetise has one blockchain application used for management and distribution of authorized signatory lists such as delegated authorities, bank mandates etc.   What is blockchain? According to Steve, blockchain has 4 pillars – Decentralised database A centralized database allows users with requisite permissions to add, remove, edit and view data (think of a spreadsheet on your computer!) A decentralised database is not owned by a single party. Hence, each party, with requisite permissions, can add and view data. There is a record (time-stamped audit trail to document modifications.) Distributed Ledger The key feature of blockchain for commercial applications – under traditional centralized systems of record, for a transaction between two parties to take place, there would have to be a debit and credit effect recorded. However, with a single shared database (as in the case of blockchain), data doesn’t need to move around. Immutability Numerous blockchain applications in insurance today exploit the immutability of blockchain (such as FlureeDB, which uses DLT-enabled databases.) Blockchain has an in-built audit trail that is timestamped. Smart Contracts Smart contracts are pieces of code that allow execution of certain actions conditional on certain pre-specified conditions being met. With appropriate (legal) documentation, smart contracts may also serve as (trigger based self-executing) legal contracts – this is the notion of Ricardian contracts.   Lack of universal terminology as a barrier Steve makes an excellent point - since blockchain is a nascent technology, there are no universally accepted definitions for key concepts. To begin with, blockchain purists and business practitioners disagree on whether industry deployments of “blockchain” are “blockchain” or “DLT” projects. As Steve points out, so long as the terminology used is clarified by the concern parties, the terminology itself doesn’t hold much significance.   Barriers to adoption of blockchain across industries  “Part of the adoption (of a new technology) is to break it down into something that is useful at a process level and then you can build and evolve as opposed to revolutionize.”   Blockchain as a nascent technology Steve recalls the first time he read about blockchain in a newspaper – the article spoke about how blockchain would “revolutionize” trade, clearing and settlement process within the banking ecosystem.  His initial reaction was that of surprise – as he rightly points out, how could you realistically expect hundreds of ecosystem participants spread across the world to each adopt a new technology almost overnight? In his opinion, such claims are equivalent to stating that it would be possible to build Facebook overnight. The message is clear – change doesn’t take place overnight; more so at financial institutions since they are subject to strict internal and external scrutiny – new technology needs to pass through checks before reaching commercial deployment.   Integration with legacy technology According to Steve, the more complex a blockchain based solution is, the harder it becomes to integrate the solution with the existing technology stack through API’s. Furthermore, he highlighted that another approach would involve identifying manual processes within an organization or an ecosystem that can be replaced by technology (perhaps, blockchain.)   How to build a business case for blockchain deployment?

[Original review is here. Don’t worry, people who had interesting comments on the review – I’ll try to get a comments highlights thread up eventually.] For Ricardo, who published his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation in 1817, the chief concern was the long-term evolution of land prices and land rents. Like Malthus, he had virtually no genuine statistics at his disposal. He nevertheless had intimate knowledge of the capitalism of his time. Born into a family of Jewish financiers with Portuguese roots, he also seems to have had fewer political prejudices than Malthus, Young, or Smith. He was influenced by the Malthusian model but pushed the argument farther. He was above all interested in the following logical paradox. Once both population and output begin to grow steadily, land tends to become increasingly scarce relative to other goods. The law of supply and demand then implies that the price of land will rise continuously, as will the rents paid to landlords. The landlords will therefore claim a growing share of national income, as the share available to the rest of the population decreases, thus upsetting the social equilibrium. For Ricardo, the only logically and politically acceptable answer was to impose a steadily increasing tax on land rents. This somber prediction proved wrong: land rents did remain high for an extended period, but in the end the value of farm land inexorably declined relative to other forms of wealth as the share of agriculture in national income decreased. Writing in the 1810s, Ricardo had no way of anticipating the importance of technological progress or industrial growth in the years ahead. Like Malthus and Young, he could not imagine that humankind would ever be totally freed from the alimentary imperative. One underappreciated feature of Piketty is his engaging presentation of economic history. A constant feature of the theorists he discusses is that they are all brilliant thinkers, they all follow the trends of their time to their obvious conclusions in ways deeper and more insightful than their contemporaries – and they all miss complicated paradigm shifts that make the trends obsolete and totally ruin their theories. Rationalists take note. Like Ricardo, Marx based his work on an analysis of the internal logical contradictions of the capitalist system. He therefore sought to distinguish himself from both bourgeois economists (who saw the market as a self-regulated system, that is, a system capable of achieving equilibrium on its own without major deviations, in accordance with Adam Smith’s image of “the invisible hand” and Jean-Baptiste Say’s “law” that production creates its own demand), and utopian socialists and Proudhonians, who in Marx’s view were content to denounce the misery of the working class without proposing a truly scientific analysis of the economic processes responsible for it.7 In short, Marx took the Ricardian model of the price of capital and the principle of scarcity as the basis of a more thorough analysis of the dynamics of capitalism in a world where capital was primarily industrial (machinery, plants, etc.) rather than landed property, so that in principle there was no limit to the amount of capital that could be accumulated. In fact, his principal conclusion was what one might call the “principle of infinite accumulation,” that is, the inexorable tendency for capital to accumulate and become concentrated in ever fewer hands, with no natural limit to the process. This is the basis of Marx’s prediction of an apocalyptic end to capitalism: either the rate of return on capital would steadily diminish (thereby killing the engine of accumulation and leading to violent conflict among capitalists), or capital’s share of national income would increase indefinitely (which sooner or later would unite the workers in revolt). In either case, no stable socioeconomic or political equilibrium was possible.

Murray Rothbard died before he could write the third volume of his famous History of Economic Thought, which would cover the birth and development of the Austrian School, through the Keynesian Revolution and Chicago School. With this six-lecture course, however, the History of Economic Thought is complete. 3. The Pre Austrians Richard Cantillon was quite Misesian before Mises. He wrote of utility theory and the entrepreneur’s uncertainty in the 1970s. Cantillon was a great money practitioner. He became a bank and banker to the Jacobite Stuart line and to John Law who launched paper money inflation. Turgot became finance minister in 1774, but laissez-faire ideas failed. Turgot was Rothbard’s favorite character in the history of thought. He wrote well under time pressure. He wrote of wealth and capital theory and even of Austrian time preference theory and the law of diminishing returns. Cantillon and Turgot preceded Adam Smith, but were not mentioned by Smith. Smith made waste and rubbish of 2,000 years of economic thought. The French theorists were lost. Smith deviated from laissez-faire in practically everything. Malthus got his anti-population stuff from Smith. Hume was a great writer while a confused pre-Friedmanite thinker. He thought fractional reserve banking was fraud. John Stuart Mill originated much of the Ricardian system like the law of comparative advantage. Mill was one of the inventors of libertarian class analysis which proclaims that the only class conflict comes from the state. Mill and Marshall reestablish Ricardianism. That really ushers in the 20th century. The third in a series of six lectures on the History of Economic Thought. This lecture on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yvk4hIoebJs Sourced from: https://mises.org/library/history-economic-thought-marx-hayek We are not endorsed or affiliated with the above. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode Presented by: Read Rothbard is comprised of a small group of voluntaryists who are fans of Murray N. Rothbard. We curate content on the www.ReadRothbard.com site including books, lectures, articles, speeches, and we make a weekly podcast based on his free-market approach to economics. Our focus is on education and how advancement in technology improves the living standards of the average person. The Read Rothbard Podcast is all about Maximum Freedom. We look at movies and current events from a Rothbardian Anarchist perspective. If it's voluntary, we're cool with it. If it's not, then it violated the Non-Aggression Principle and Property Rights - the core tenants of Libertarian Theory - and hence - human freedom. Website: http://www.ReadRothbard.com iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-read-rothbard-podcast/id1166745868 Google Play Music: https://play.google.com/music/m/Ii45fhytlsiwkw6cbgzbxi6ahmi?t=The_Read_Rothbard_Podcast Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/readrothbardclub Twitter: https://twitter.com/read_rothbard Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/gp/145447582@N05/xB4583 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ReadRothbard Murray Rothbard, Murray N Rothbard, Read Rothbard, Anarchy, Anarchism, Free-Market, Anarcho-Capitalism, News and Events, Podcast, Laissez-Faire, Voluntaryist, Voluntaryism, Non-Aggression Principle, NAP, Libertarian, Libertarianism, Economics, Austrian Economics,

The historical record shows that countries that rise to economic greatness did so through a strong industrial policy, which incorporates tariffs and non-trade barriers.  Moreover, at their apex these powers tended to adopt free trade, some vainly thinking that in doing so they might change the world for the better, but nevertheless be able to kick away the ladder upon which others might follow to industrial might.  In Part 2 of this special edition of Stocks-in-Depth, we review what economist Ian Fletcher calls the “forgotten history” of trade, and show how it contradicts the premises of classical economist David Ricardo’s theories of comparative advantage.  We also devote much of this podcast to presenting the many flawed assumptions behind Ricardian economic theory, as illustrated by the realities of the emergence on the world scene of great economic powers: England, the United States, Japan, and China.

Before 2013 few people paid attention to Bitcoin and blockchain, yet even back in the 1990s a vibrant group of prioneers pursued the vision of financial cryptography and digital cash. One of these was financial cryptographer and software developer Ian Grigg, who today works as an architecture consultant for R3. Grigg joined us for a discussion of the history of the digital cash, Bitcoin and his work on Ricardian Contracts, which foreshadowed today’s smart contracts. Topics covered in this episode: The origin story of financial cryptography DigiCash and the startup scene around it in the 1990s Ricardian Contracts and why contracts are central to digital assets Ricardian Contracts vs blockchain Episode links: Ricardian Contract Paper Financial Cryptography Website Financial Cryptography in 7 Layers R3CEV Brown, Carlyle, Grigg & Hearn: Corda - An Introduction This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/151

What Bitcoin did for money, OpenBazaar is trying to achieve for commerce. Born as a fork of the Dark Market project, OpenBazaar aims to facilitate online trade by removing unneeded middlemen. Built as an open source protocol, users simply install the application on their computer to gain access to marketplaces available on the network. From the app, they may also place items or services for sale by creating “Ricardian contracts”, which get propagated to the network and made accessible to everyone to see. The protocol, which uses Bitcoin as a means of payments, utilises multi-signature transactions. This makes it possible for transacting parties to include third-party arbitrators, who may intervene in the event of a dispute. We talked to Brian Hoffman, the project’s Lead Developer, about this paradigm-shifting project and the potential it has to disrupt person-to-person marketplaces such as eBay. Currently in beta, OpenBazaar is due for a full release in Q1-Q2 of 2015. Topics covered in this episode: History and current status of the project Mechanics of a simple transaction on OpenBazaar Ricardian contracts OpenBazaar’s proposed arbitration model Reputation and the important role it plays in peer-to-peer trading Business models that may be threatened by this technology Episode links: OpenBazaar OpenBazaar Git Repo Ricardian Contracts OpenBazaar Reddit Bitrated This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/067

A broad-ranging discussion of conventional economics and the heterodox alternatives to IS/LM, Ricardian equivalence, etc.

This note identifies a severe mistake in my article “Unexpected Consequences of Ricardian Expectations” that appeard in this journal in the July 2013 issue.

Economists are widely familiar with the Ricardian equivalence thesis. It maintains that, given the time-path of government spending, a change in taxation does not alter the set of feasible life-time consumption plans of the households and affects neither the demand for commodities and services nor the rate of interest, provided the households act rationally. In this note a surprising finding is established. Assuming that the agents in a standard infinite horizon growth model hold the very expectations the thesis proposes (“Ricardian expectations”), it is shown that these expectations are invalidated. This divergence from the Ricardian equivalence thesis is traced to the omission of interest payments on public debt as part of the households' disposable income. The non-equivalence is valid in a wide class of models.

This paper quantitatively explores the role of the demand structure in explaining the relationship between an importer's per capita income and the extensive margin of bilateral trade. The underlying mechanism is based on the fact that agents expand the set of goods they consume with income. This in turn affects the structure of a country's import demand and therewith the extensive margin of trade. We formalize this intuition by incorporating preferences that allow for binding non-negativity constraints into an otherwise standard Ricardian multi-country model. We quantify the model using the data on US consumer expenditures and aggregate values of bilateral trade flows and find that the behavior of the model's extensive margin of bilateral trade is consistent with the data (as opposed to the standard model). Two popular counterfactual experiments - lower trade costs and the rise of China and India - demonstrate that the mechanism outlined in this paper is indeed quantitatively important.

Economists are widely familiar with the Ricardian equivalence thesis. It maintains that, given the time-path of government spending, a change in taxation does not alter the set of feasible life-time consumption plans of the households and affects neither the demand for commodities and services nor the rate of interest, provided the households act rationally. In this note a surprising finding is established. Assuming that the agents in a standard infinite horizon growth model hold the very expectations the thesis proposes (“Ricardian expectations”), it is shown that these expectations are disappointed. This divergence from the Ricardian equivalence thesis is traced to the omission of interest payments on public debt as part of the households' disposable income. The non-equivalence is valid in a wide class of models. Further it is shown that a permanent deficit policy does not imply a violation of the government's budget constraint at any point of time in the future.

From An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume II. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

From An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume II. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

From An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume II. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

From An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume II. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

From An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume II. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

From An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume II. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

From An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume II. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

Russ Roberts, host of EconTalk, does a monologue this week on the economics of trade and specialization. Economists have focused on David Ricardo's idea of comparative advantage as the source of specialization and wealth creation from trade. Drawing on Adam Smith and the work of James Buchanan, Yong Yoon, and Paul Romer, Roberts argues that we've neglected the role of the size of the market in creating incentives for specialization and wealth creation via trade. Simply put, the more people we trade with, the greater the opportunity to specialize and innovate, even when people are identical. The Ricardian insight masks the power of market size in driving innovation and the transformation of our standard of living over the last few centuries in the developed world.

Russ Roberts, host of EconTalk, does a monologue this week on the economics of trade and specialization. Economists have focused on David Ricardo's idea of comparative advantage as the source of specialization and wealth creation from trade. Drawing on Adam Smith and the work of James Buchanan, Yong Yoon, and Paul Romer, Roberts argues that we've neglected the role of the size of the market in creating incentives for specialization and wealth creation via trade. Simply put, the more people we trade with, the greater the opportunity to specialize and innovate, even when people are identical. The Ricardian insight masks the power of market size in driving innovation and the transformation of our standard of living over the last few centuries in the developed world.

Richard Cantillon was quite Misesian before Mises. He wrote of utility theory and the entrepreneur’s uncertainty in the 1970s. Cantillon was a great money practitioner. He became a bank and banker to the Jacobite Stuart line and to John Law who launched paper money inflation.Turgot became finance minister in 1774, but laissez-faire ideas failed. Turgot was Rothbard’s favorite character in the history of thought. He wrote well under time pressure. He wrote of wealth and capital theory and even of Austrian time preference theory and the law of diminishing returns.Cantillon and Turgot preceded Adam Smith, but were not mentioned by Smith. Smith made waste and rubbish of 2,000 years of economic thought. The French theorists were lost. Smith deviated from laissez-faire in practically everything. Malthus got his anti-population stuff from Smith.Hume was a great writer while a confused pre-Friedmanite thinker. He thought fractional reserve banking was fraud.John Stuart Mill originated much of the Ricardian system like the law of comparative advantage. Mill was one of the inventors of libertarian class analysis which proclaims that the only class conflict comes from the state. Mill and Marshall reestablish Ricardianism. That really ushers in the 20th century.The third in a series of six lectures on the History of Economic Thought.