Michael D. Thomas

09/12/2022

The essential elements of gift-giving—sacrifice, reciprocity, ritual, and public visibility—are absent in the forgiveness of student loans.

09/07/2022

The dynamic efficiency of gifting - Anthony Gill and Michael D. Thomas. August 2022

The dynamic efficiency of gifting

02/08/2022

I write with Creighton Student Nathan A. Miller.

"Behavioral policies, including nudges and framing effects, promise public health benefits with little additional public health expenditure and are therefore popular tools among policymakers operating under tight fiscal conditions. Beyond being a low-cost option, behavioral taxes also offer an additional source of tax revenue that can shore up local, state, and federal budgets. In order for behavioral taxes to be effective, they have to result in substitution to alternative goods and services. Studies on excise taxation often report demand-elasticity estimates, but such analysis is static rather than dynamic. In order to think about the effectiveness of behavioral change, we provide a tool to help consider dynamic effects of taxes along with static policy goals. In order for the behavioral justifications for taxes to pass the devil’s test, elasticity must increase over time."

"Journal of Private Enterprise" | Winter2021

08/27/2021

My new book review:

Book Review Published: 26 August 2021 Donald J. Boudreaux and Roger Meiners (eds), The Legacy of Bruce Yandle. Arlington, VA: Mercatus center, 2020. xviii + 270 pages. USD 19.95 (paperback) Michael David Thomas1 Public Choice (2021)Cite this article Metrics details This is a preview of subscript...

08/05/2021

In this essay I argue that the Pope is Catholic...

Pope Francis' restriction the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass is to ensure the unity of the Church.

07/17/2021

In this article there is a brief mention of "confirmation utility" as an explanation of "rational irrationality" by Caplan and treatment of this by others (including Thomas, Thomas, and Snow).

Why do groups of even well-educated individuals sometimes persistently believe in political myths and ideologies? We follow cognition psychology in it…

07/13/2021

Pigou said: "It is not sufficient to contrast the imperfect adjustments of unfettered private enterprise with the best adjustment that economists in their studies can imagine. For we cannot expect that any State authority will attain, or will even whole-heartedly seek, that ideal. Such authorities are liable alike to sectional pressure and to personal corruption by private interest." (1920, 296)

"That the choice to remain unvaccinated against Covid creates some risks for strangers is indisputable. Yet this fact about this choice does not distinguish it from many other choices with similar consequences, nearly all of which choices, again, do not justify government intervention." ~ Donald...

07/08/2021

There is a bank in Italy that accepts wheels of cheese as collateral for loans to farmers.

"The more it ages, the more delicious and valuable it becomes—like cash in an interest-bearing account... Credem accepts young cheese as collateral, valuing it at the current market price of mature cheese."

You might say they're using Parmesan to make cheddar.

07/06/2021

For all their triumphs, AI systems can’t seem to generalize the concepts of “same” and “different.” Without that, researchers worry, the quest to create truly intelligent machines may be hopeless.

07/01/2021

Since 1965, Singapore has been propelled to the dizzying heights of first-world prosperity. Yet, the People's Action Party's signature style of technocratic elitism has come under increasing criticism by a new generation of left-leaning progressive scholars and activists condemning the excesses of n...

04/15/2021

02/16/2021

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) by behavioral economists pretend to be pragmatic and only interested in what works to solve practical problems, but in reality, they have notorious normative and ideological aspects. Behavioral RCTs ignore contexts and composition effects and reflect the biases of those who perform assessments. Behavioral randomizers presume without demonstrating that market exchanges are the most effective form of regulation for societies in all situations of social life. The positive or negative incentives (“nudges”) offered by behavioral economics aim to normalize the behavior of consumers, users, employees, or small/independent producers. They are part of a set of power devices by which individual behaviors are shaped and forced, without their knowledge, to conform to dominant class interests

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