Department of Economics

Spring Seminar – Rick Hornbeck, April 27, 2018-Engines of Growth: Railroads, Reallocation, and the Rise of American Manufacturing” (joint with Martin Rotemberg)

Friday, April 27, 2018, 3:30 pm 302 Sirrine Topic: Engines of Growth:  Railroads, Reallocation, and the Rise of American Manufacturing” (joint with Martin Rotemberg) We examine the impacts of market integration on the development of American manufacturing, as railroads expanded through the latter half of the 19th century.  Using county-by-industry data from the Census of […]

Book Review – “The Political Spectrum: The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology from Herbert Hoover to the Smartphone”

  For many, simply thinking of reading a century-long history covering the evolution of regulation of the electromagnetic spectrum would make their eyes glaze over. But Thomas Hazlett’s The Political Spectrum has turned that material into an interesting, informative, and powerful read, packed with important lessons and implications about markets, regulation, and public choice economics, illustrated with […]

A Review Essay on Howard Bodenhorn’s The Color Factor: The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth-Century South†

In The Color Factor: The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth-Century South, Howard Bodenhorn investigates the origins, health, and socioeconomic performance of mixed-race people in the antebellum Southern United States. The central conclusion of the book is that mixed-race people fared better than darker-skinned blacks on nearly every dimension; however, they were still disadvantaged […]

The Cato Institute invites you to a Book Forum on Thursday, March 15, 2018

The Political Spectrum: The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology, from Herbert Hoover to the Smartphone (Yale University Press)   featuring the author Thomas W. Hazlett, Hugh H. Macaulay Endowed Chair in Economics, Clemson Universitywith comments by Ajit Pai, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission   RSVP to the event   Popular legend has it that before the […]

Hey, we might need that wall … to stop Mexico’s state-run 5G network BY THOMAS W. HAZLETT AND SCOTT WALLSTEN, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS — 02/22/18

Hey, we might need that wall … to stop Mexico’s state-run 5G network BY THOMAS W. HAZLETT AND SCOTT WALLSTEN, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS — 02/22/18 11:00 AM EST 14 THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL   The Trump administration’s infrastructure plan brings Republicans and Democrats together. This flash of […]