Sublime

Kakonomics is the strange yet widespread preference for mediocre exchanges insofar as nobody complains about them.

Stigler’s mark in economics centered on the economic competency—or rather incompetency—of state power. Once man’s behavior was reduced to utility-maximizing self-interest, economists were able to tear down the edifices of government intervention in the economy; they sought “a large role for explicit or implicit prices in the solution of many social

It is simply bad economics to impose our preferences on individuals whose lives are much, much different.

“If you said to a dean that you wanted to fund conservative constitutional law, he would reject the idea out of hand. But if you said you wanted to support Law and Economics, he would be much more open to the idea,” he confided. “Law and Economics is neutral, but it has a philosophical thrust in the direction of free markets and limited government.

“The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.”—John Rawls

“I try to sprinkle good sources of information all around,” he says.

These days, our very favorite interview question is this one: “What are the open tabs on your browser right now?”