Jun

22

Retail Health Care

Filed Under Markets, Regulation | 1 Comment

An argument for retail health care by Michael Goodfellow, by way of Marginal Revolution. Following an overview of the factors that actually influence life expectancy, he writes:

There’s no reason to insure yourself against the ordinary expenses. We do that now, and just end up paying for it in premiums instead of retail, but with the [...]

Jun

19

Encouraging Accidents

Filed Under Books, Complexity, Markets | Leave a Comment

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of the excellent Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets, and more recently The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, which I’ve not read yet) discusses what he is optimistic about: The Birth of Stochastic Science. He laments the fact that too [...]

May

4

Innovations: Wide, Deep, and Long

Filed Under Markets, Software | Leave a Comment

Ludwig Lachmann, discussing the problem of diminishing returns in Capital and Its Structure, makes the following argument:

Where existing capital is merely duplicated (’widened’), operated by a given labour force, diminishing returns will soon appear. Where new capital resources, but of the type employed before, are being substituted for labour (’deepened’), we may have to wait [...]

Apr

29

Primary Care Arbitrage

Filed Under Markets | 1 Comment

There’s an interesting discussion at Overcoming Bias about a study that finds no significant different between outcomes (under specific circumstances) of patients treated by more expensive doctors and those treated by less expensive nurse practitioners.
In the case of practically any other human endeavor, a throng of enterprising individuals would jump in to try to take [...]