The fancy-college-educated left take great satisfaction in proclaiming that robots will soon threaten blue-collar jobs, while skills requiring higher education will be immune from competition driven by artificial intelligence (AI). This is surely incorrect. Robots/AI can in principle reproduce any predictable process, whether mechanical or intellectual. They cannot reproduce unexpected movement, leaps of imagination or […]

If you had bought South Sea Company shares 300 years ago today, on February 17, 1720, you would have paid the inflated price of about £175 per share. If you had sold those shares at any time before the end of September 1720, you would have made a fine profit, more than five times your […]

On July 6, 1988 European Commission President Jacques Delors propounded the hope that “Ten years hence, 80% of our economic legislation, and perhaps even our fiscal and social legislation as well, will be of Community origin.” The EU has not lost this ambition; this week Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, attempted to prevent […]

Classical economics holds that economic decisions are made by rational decision makers, using solid information and reason. Behavioral economics holds that many economic decisions are based on “cognitive biases” such as an aversion to losses that is stronger than the desire for profits. Richard Robb’s new book “Willful” holds that many decisions are made without […]