Peter Gordon's Blog

We all want to look beyond stereotypes but, at the same time, privately (secretly) wonder about what truths they may contain. There are lawy...

A few years ago (I am not sure when) Prof. Ed Mills wrote (I am not sure where) that the internet was the way we would share unambiguous mes...

We have almost gotten used to what follows in the wake oil price spikes: silly politics, weird conspiracy theories and the mystery of what h...

The smart set put down those they label "popularizers". Or mere popularizers. This is silly for several reasons. Many people can b...

On Monday, the WSJ ran the following: "The Shame of the Cites: French Unrest Finds A Home in Projects ... France's public-housing ...

"Get people out of their cars" has been the rallying cry for greens, Luddites and many planners and politicians. The WSJ 's St...

Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone was almost a blockbuster (by academic standards) and the author made the cover of People mag and was cou...

City and regional planners invoke the vague idea of "jobs-housing balance" as being a way that they can plan land uses and land us...

Is it possible for an economist to be thrilled at the sight of first-time voters, whether in Iraq of Cambodia or any of the other places whe...

The current issue of The Freeman includes John Semmens' "Wal-Mart is Good for the Economy". It seems that many people need re...

Here is one blogger's report (Newmark's Door) of the good news on U.S. productivity growth. The old media (today's LA Times, fo...

If you use first-class U.S. mail, keep those 2-cent stamps handy because the 37-cent stamp will soon be history. The thirty-nine cent rate i...

"Allocation and Dictatorship: Research in Stalin's Archives" by Paul Gregory and Mark Harrison (in the Sep, 2005 Journal of E...

There are opinions held and opinions upheld. The zero-sum view of the world is an opinion held with uncanny consistency by those whom Tom So...

"Fair competiton" and "social justice" are staples of the rhetoric that passes for normal discourse among elite American...

One of our most perceptive writers on modern American cities is Robert Bruegmann, whose Sprawl: A Compact History is now in print. Bob had ...

L.A. politicians (and many others) award exclusive cable franchises to areas throughout the city. Yet they and their fellows at the L.A. Ti...

The October 2005 Reason featured a wonderful discussion on "The Social Responsibility of Business". Milton Friedman, John Mackey ...

For those who require proof, evidence for predominantly left-leaning university faculties keeps accumulating. The interesting part is the de...

To those economists who greatly enjoyed Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel but were made a tad uneasy by the geographical determinis...