I’m a bit behind on this blog, but I have been writing for the past year or so at the American Institute for Economic Research. I don’t know why the let ME write, considering the other people who are contributing, but I’ve enjoyed the opportunity. You can find my articles here.

While everyone is busy making sense of the election, I figured I would stop on by ye ole blog and talk about something completely unrelated…

My last post probably generated more confusion than clarity. Let me try to clarify some conceptual points that might help bring my thinking into focus. In that post, I was trying to work through the inequality/rents connection. I argued that the standard way I’ve seen it presented doesn’t make sense to me. I tried to argue that increasing rents is neither necessary, nor sufficient for increasing inequality. In the more speculative parts of the post, I suggested why I think this confusion exists.

If this post sounds confused, it is probably because it is. I’m trying to work through what people mean when they use the word “rent.” They seem to slide between rents and rent-seeking, which are connected but different things.

Yesterday’s post tried to lay out why I believe the fundamental difference between Austrians, Chicago school, and Samuelsonian economists is only one of emphasis. Thinking more about it, I was reminded about an interview with Kirzner that also bring in the use of math in economics (one of my favorite topics to get myself in trouble).