Volume 3, Issue 6

According to Paul Rubin, John Donohue and Justin Wolfers mischaracterize his analysis of the death penalty.

Transfers and economic costs are indeed different in the war in Iraq, and transfers may be significant.

Gloria Helfand argues that consumer misperception of risk or the availability of disaster relief may reduce consumer participation in a catastrophe insurance market.

Laurence Kotlikoff gives the current tax system a D, the President’s Tax Reform Panel proposal a B+ and explains what his A+ tax system would look like.

Laurence Kotlikoff presents a humorous take on Lawrence Summers' alleged suggestion that economists are smarter than sociologists.

Although rates are lower than in the past, the combination of the corporate and personal tax rates still imply high marginal tax rates on capital income. Martin Feldstein argues that such high tax rates hurt the economy even if saving rates are not sensitive to rates of return, and examines the various ways in which capital taxes distort other aspects of economic activity.

Comparing the experience of Vioxx and Celebrex leads Omri Ben-Shahar to think that stiff product liability has the perverse effect of inducing manufacturers of defective products to leave these products on the market, rather than withdraw them.

Robert Hahn and Scott Wallsten argue that mandating net neutrality, like most other forms of price regulation, is poor policy; instead, the government should focus on creating competition in the broadband market by liberalizing more spectrum and reducing entry barriers created by certain local regulations.

Economists think many (most?) things are subject to incentives. The evidence from ''Down Under'' suggests that even the timing of death could vary with a repeal of estate taxes.