This post by David Friedman on the gift giving topic (why people give gifts when simply giving cash instead appears to be the most efficient choice in most cases) is very interesting, hence I add his two explanations to the signalling hypothesis by Greg Mankiw, with the “wild self” connotation by Alex Tabarrok (however it appears that Tabarrok’s wild self ran into trouble subsequently…that’s what happens when you’ve got both a wild self and a wife).
→ Read more Category: economics
Markets in everything, everywhere, anytime: inflation in Tahiti, XVIIIth century
The best post I’ve read today is Bernard Salanié’s “L’inflation chez les nobles sauvages” , on the dynamics of a particular business relationship between Captain Cook’s sailors and the female population of Tahiti, around 1770.
→ Read more New life for sale on eBay
This is the final proof that markets function everywhere and in everything. I have blogged before about auctioning favourite restaurant meals and about the free market for beers, but this Aussie beats all that: he sells you a new life (well, obviously his life- the only one he can auction- with all its current advantages and drawbacks, though he concedes that some ‘inherited’ features can be altered in the future, such as the fact that you’d have to start as vegetarian…).
→ Read more On Dutch coffeeshops and the war on drugs
Since I recently blogged about libertarianism, the Netherlands is in some respects (however, mind you: NL is far from being a pure ‘laissez faire’ country in general) a champion in succesfully implementing libertarian policies.
→ Read more Can we just scale up Denmark?
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My short answer: no.
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My longer answer: no, the success of the DK extensive welfare policies is to a large extent possible given the character of the Danes and therefore they’d most likely not work anywhere else.