Josh Evan Barker

Communicator of Economics and Social Science • @ClemsonEcon PhD Student • @Hillsdale, @EasternU, @SenateCommerce, @AEI, @PhiladelphiaFed Alumn • Opinions my own

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

Here’s a brief introduction: who am I and what topics do I talk about?

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

You know what aligns with a circadian rhythm even better than the 4 standard time zones in the U.S.? Each city having it's own time zone based on the position of the sun! That's very costly for coordination, but who says we can't *live as if* we had our own town's time zone?

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

I'm sympathetic, but the problem is with people's refusal to adapt. So long as we have time zones, some cities are going to be along the edge and not conform well. They should adapt by adjusting their schedules. 8am sunrise is late! So why not make school/office hours 10-6?

[Alex Clark @yoalexrapz]

Everyone agrees the twice-a-year clock change is ridiculous.
But if we’re making one time permanent, why choose the one that most sleep and circadian experts don’t recommend?
Permanent standard time aligns better with our biology because morning sunlight is what sets our internal clocks. Permanent Daylight Saving Time means darker winter mornings, later body clocks, and more circadian disruption. This would be another disaster for American health. It’s probably too late to stop this but switch this to permanent Standard time instead!!!!

[Emma Camp @emmma_camp_]

You can't afford housing, education, and healthcare because of government intervention. These are straightforward examples of how regulation + subsidies makes things less affordable.

[nxthompson @nxthompson]

This is an amazing quote from Lindsey Graham about when he realized how politics works. https://t.co/sh04ahQOFq

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

What are property rights? #propertyrights #economics #econ #economictheory #freedom #freemarket

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

Is it really true that income is always equal to output in economics? What about during inventory accumulation? #macroeconomics #income #output #economictheory

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

Output can be calculated using either the expenditure or income approach. What’s the income approach and how does it work? #gdp #macroeconomics #output

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

GDP and GNP are some of the most common metrics of output. What’s the difference? #gdp #gnp #macroeconomics

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

Alchian’s “Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory” (1950) proposes we focus economics on studying the functioning of economic systems rather than decisions made by individuals. #economics #systems #freemarket

[Miles Kimball @mileskimball]

I love Mankiw and Reis (2002), "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," but it misinterprets its math. As economics, the math should be interpreted as being about *imperfect information processing*, not about imperfect information. FRED has all the information readily available, at anyone's fingertips. What is hard is not getting the information, it's figuring out how to use that macroeconomic information appropriately to modify one's microeconomic price-setting.

https://t.co/QwmD4jn2kx

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

James Buchanan suggested that mainstream price theory wrongly conflates two distinct areas of microeconomic study: the pure logic of choice and behavior theory. #choice #economics #economictheory #microeconomics #supplyanddemand

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

Homo economicus is the hypothetical agent in most basic economic models. What traits does he have? Is he too simple to capture the important features of humans? #economics #economictheory #econ

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

Output is the central variable of macroeconomics. How is it defined? #macroeconomics #output #economictheory

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

Is economics too unrealistic? Of course, economic models are simpler than reality, but they are extremely useful. #economics #econ #economictheory

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

This is the kind of incentive compatibility I love to see.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Taiwan solved tax evasion in 1951 with a trick so cheap it should embarrass every tax authority on the planet.

The problem was an all-cash economy full of small shops. A merchant pockets the cash, skips the receipt, and the sale never existed. Auditors can't catch what was never recorded, and hiring enough of them to watch every noodle stand costs more than the missing tax.

So finance chief Ren Xianqun flipped the incentive. Print a lottery number on every receipt. Draw winners every two months on live TV. Top prize today: NT$10 million, about $310K.

Suddenly the customer and the shopkeeper want opposite things. The merchant wants the sale off the books. The customer wants the ticket. And there are millions more customers than merchants. Every transaction now carries a built-in witness demanding the paper trail.

Year one, reported tax revenue jumped 75%, from NT$29 million to NT$51 million. Seventy-five years later, roughly 70% of Taiwanese still play. Convenience stores redeem the smallest NT$200 prizes at the register, so even a coffee receipt feels like a scratch card.

The elegant part is what the audit force costs. The prize pool runs about NT$7 billion a year, roughly $20 million. In exchange, the government gets 23 million unpaid auditors working every checkout line in the country, forever. No inspector general on earth delivers that coverage at that price.

Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Slovakia all copied it. The most effective compliance tool ever built looks like a game, and that's exactly why it works.

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

Is freedom dead? Not yet and the fight isn’t over. 3/3

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

Is our country worth celebrating? Is freedom dead today? Each side has its own questions and criticisms of the U.S. as we recognize our 250th birthday. Here’s my thoughts.

1/3

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

Is America worth celebrating? Yes. 2/3

[Josh Evan Barker @JoshEvanBarker]

How did we get the term economics? From Xenophon to Alfred Marshall, Economics has had quite the journey. #economics #historyofeconomics #history #economictheory #economicthought

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

JD Vance’s new book has a chapter on economics, and he basically spends it blaming the concepts of capitalism and markets for everything he doesn’t like, including low birth rates and opioid addiction.

This is exactly what academic leftists do. They don’t actually defend their own economic ideas and explain exactly how they would make life better. With Vance, you’re just supposed to infer that fewer Americans would die of overdoses if we ended free trade and household appliances because more expensive. Or that capitalism leads to fewer children, even though fertility has collapsed everywhere.

As with leftists, for Vance “capitalism” is just a boogeyman for anything that goes wrong in the world.