“What about university administrator bloat?” This question is commonly posed in conjunction with the adjunct activist movement, and usually identified as an “obvious” source for funding that could be reallocated to other purposes. And it might well be suitable for reallocation, though as Jason Brennan and I showed it is not obvious that adjuncts deserve […]
A couple of people have sent me links to something called the “Philosophy Smoker,” which blogged a response to our adjunct article. I’ll give them the credit that they at least read the article before commenting on it, which is no small accomplishment given the scholarly mean of the madjunct world. That said, I found
My article with Jason Brennan on “Estimating the Cost of Justice for Adjuncts” caused a bit of a stir over the weekend after it was featured in several news stories. Many of the issues we raise are starting to be realized as universities grapple with the adjunct issue in earnest and a number of the more
Almost two years have passed since the publication of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, and the larger genre of economic research on the distribution of wealth has exploded since that time with complementary arguments being advanced by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, as well as economic popularizes on the left including Paul Krugman and
New evidence is undermining the ‘Inequality Scare’ Read More »
Policy swaps seem to be all the rage these days among some self-described libertarians. The premise is simple: recognizing that political libertarianism isn’t exactly thriving at the moment, they propose a policy “swap” in which they signal a willingness to forego a hardline libertarian position in some issue areas in exchange for promised gains in other
A challenge for libertarian “welfare state” policy swappers Read More »
The internet has been abuzz for the past few days with a new climate forecasting study by Terence Mills, a well-known statistician at Loughborough University in the UK. The report is highly technical and reads as something of a mathematics textbook on how to design Box-Jenkins type ARIMA forecasting models for climate data, so statistical novice readers be
The adjunct activist movement is currently mobilizing its forces behind a new “adjunct relief” bill in the California legislature, AB 1690. The proponents of this bill are portraying it as a much-needed “job security” measure for part time contract faculty at state-run higher ed institutions (in this case the California community college system). The bill
Adjunct activists seek to codify age-discrimination against younger academics Read More »
Thomas Piketty is back in the news again with a strange new political op-ed espousing the presidential candidacy of Bernie Sanders. As with most things Piketty, his end game in backing Sanders comes down to higher taxes. Sanders has pledged to raise income tax rates on the upper brackets, so Piketty has accordingly attempted to
Piketty uses false history to promote Bernie’s tax plan Read More »
I dislike the products electoral politics for a number of reasons, and presently have no horse in the ongoing race. Others who apparently do have suggested of late that even persons of a libertarian-ish perspective – arguably the least represented viewpoint amongst the current crop of candidates, and now politically homeless to borrow a phrase from
The American Economic Association held its annual meeting in San Francisco this week. Consistent with the recent surge of interest in inequality research, one of the papers generating the most buzz was a new income inequality time series by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman. The paper itself has not been released yet, but its
Quick thoughts on the new Piketty-Saez-Zucman Income Inequality Study at AEA Read More »