Link Biscuits: 16 March 2010
Submitted by Shawn Fremstad on Tue, 03/16/2010 - 15:07
- Justin Wolfers, Hayek Propped Up by Government Intervention: "Sunday’s New York Times reported on attempts by the Texas Board of Education to rewrite the high school curriculum in accordance with its conservative values. .... How do they plan to rewrite high school economics? In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, to the usual list of economists to be studied – economists like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes.... [Citation] data suggests that Hayek just doesn’t belong with Smith, Marx, Keynes, or Friedman. In fact, it seems that despite having enjoyed a much longer period to accumulate citations, he is still much less widely cited than Larry Summers. Sure, Hayek was an insightful economist. But insisting that high schools teach Hayek is a clear statement of ideology, not of economic science. The message from the Texas Board of Education seems to be: If you can’t win in the marketplace of ideas, turn to government institutions to prop you up. I don’t think Hayek would approve."
- Harry Moroz, Turning Our Backs on Benign Neglect: "The GAO has just completed its third and final review of the EZ/EC/RC programs, which are awaiting reauthorization. The results are underwhelming. As the programs aged, they came to be dominated by tax incentives rather than grants and financing decreased. Summarizing past results, the GAO notes: 1) An econometric analysis of the eight urban Round I EZs [there were three program rounds] could not determine whether the [improvements in poverty, unemployment, and economic growth] were a response to the program or to other economic conditions; 2) Similarly, interviews and surveys of EZ and EC stakeholders revealed that respondents credited the programs for certain improvements but also noted that external factors, such as changes in the national economy and in welfare policy, may have been associated with the economic changes in designated communities."
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