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Tag Archives: Economics
Adam Smith counterfactual
A counterfactual is a statement about what would have happened if a past event had been different. It’s a “what if?” scenario, considering an alternative reality where something that actually occurred did not, or vice versa. On this note, below … Continue reading
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Tagged adam-smith, cognitive-dissonance, commissioner-of-customs, Economics, History
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Das Problem des Reichtums: What does Adam Smith mean by *wealth* in The Wealth of Nations?
Below is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of my forthcoming survey of Adam Smith problems with Salim Rashid: “’Wealth’, in the words of Robert L. Heilbroner, ‘is a fundamental concept in economics—indeed, perhaps the conceptual starting point for the discipline.’ … Continue reading
A Coasian critique of Kurt Gray’s harm thesis: part 1 of 3
Yesterday, I read Elizabeth Kolbert’s review (see here) of Kurt Gray’s new book Outraged: Why We Fight about Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground on pp. 63-65 of the January 20th issue of The New Yorker. Among … Continue reading
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Tagged Economics, Ethics, kurt-gray, Politics, reciprocal-harms, Ronald Coase
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A provocative Parisian pamphlet
(Author’s note: below is Part 3 of 3 of my series of blog posts on Adam Smith’s first visit to Paris.) The pamphlet, Richesses de l’etat, took Paris by storm and stirred up an enormous debate about royal finances. (Darnton … Continue reading
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Tagged adam-smith, Economics, finance, History, Paris, Politics, roussel-de-la-tour, taxation
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Das Adam Smith Metaproblem?
I presented Die Adam Smith Probleme — a burgeoning work-in-progress that I have co-authored with Salim Rashid, who wrote The Myth of Adam Smith (available here) — at a special joint session of the History of Economics Society (HES) and … Continue reading
World Truth League White Paper
Is it possible to test the truth-values of popular or entrenched conspiracy theories without resorting to censorship? To this end, Steve Kuhn and yours truly have just posted our new “World Truth League White Paper” to SSRN. In brief, we … Continue reading
REVISED TABLE OF *ADAM SMITH PROBLEMS*
I presented “DIE ADAM SMITH PROBLEME” at the Adam Smith Tokyo Conference yesterday (11 March 2024) and got lots of feedback. (Shout outs to the International Adam Smith Society for inviting me to present my work, to Waseda University for … Continue reading
Table of Adam Smith Problems
Below the fold is a summary in table form — revised and corrected on 8 March 2024 — of my work-in-progress DIE ADAM SMITH PROBLEME” (with Salim Rashid):
Two more Adam Smith problems
Note: TMS refers to Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, while WN = The Wealth of Nations I mentioned in a previous post (see here or below) that typing “another Adam Smith problem” into Google Scholar’s search engine generates nine results: … Continue reading
Additional Adam Smith Problems
Happy Leap Day! In my previous post, I shouted out my colleague and friend, Salim Rashid, for formulating a new Adam Smith problem — or what I now like to call “Salim Rashid’s Adam Smith Problem” — in his work-in-progress … Continue reading
prior probability 