Becker-Posner Blog
A blog by Gary Becker and Richard Posner
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Posted 4 days ago
The run-up in the world price of oil during the past several years, and especially the rapid climb during the last few weeks to over $120 per barrel, has fueled predictions that the price will reach $
Posted 4 days ago
As Becker explains, we cannot predict the future price of oil. But it is unlikely to rise in the foreseeable future to $200 a barrel, especially if we think in inflation-adjusted terms. Oil prices in
Posted 1 week ago
The President has expressed dissatisfaction with the proposed Farm Bill wending its way through Congress. He wants farmers whose annual incomes exceed $200,000 to be denied subsidies; the present cuto
Posted 1 week ago
Posner presents evidence on the sizable subsidies received by American farmers from the federal government of the United States. However, the US is not unique, for every rich country including France,
Posted 2 weeks ago
The major deregulation movement of the past 100 years started with the Ford and Carter administrations in the 1970s, and continued through the Reagan years. This movement came to an end with the passa
Posted 2 weeks ago
I no longer believe that deregulation has been a complete, an unqualified, success. As I indicated in my posting of last week, deregulation of the airline industry appears to be a factor in the seriou
Posted 3 weeks ago
The increase in flight delays is just one aspect of a general decline in airline service. A few prominent examples of this decline are the elimination of meals in economy on domestic flights, more los
Tags: economy
Posted 3 weeks ago
Airline delay has increased in the last five years, and the statistics understate the amount of delay because airlines have increased scheduled flight times--the flight from Chicago to Washington used
Tags: tax
Posted 4 weeks ago
Addendum on Rising Food Prices-BeckerIt was an oversight that I did not discuss explicitly long term prospects for food price increases. The brief discussion below corrects this.A major concern about
Posted 4 weeks ago
The World Bank's index of food prices increases by 140 percent from January 2002 to the beginning of 2008, and a full 75 percent just since September 2006. This highly unusual explosion of food prices
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