Sam Branthoover

Econ PhD student

[The EPoV @PREconomics]

Economist's task is never done.

[Sam Branthoover @SamBranthoover]

@BrianCAlbrecht Ignoring further inquiry by saying “it’s actually just all demand”

[Sam Branthoover @SamBranthoover]

@follynomics I’m not sure the relevant alternative would be so much better. From the church’s perspective, is it better to have 1 billion members but half don’t go to mass, tithe, etc… or to have 500m members that do these things?

Assuming valid baptisms regardless, hard to say!

[Sam Branthoover @SamBranthoover]

@clara_jace Imagine submitting to revue d'économie politique and your reviewer complains that you're writing in Western Saxon.

At least, I think of that as analogous and it makes me laugh.

[Sam Branthoover @SamBranthoover]

@New_Common_Law @NewmanJ_R @JulieBorowski You’re implicitly changing definitions of rationality. Making decisions when you don’t have a lot of information =\= failing to pick up dollars on the ground (by acquiring more info).

I’m not saying humans are calculators, I’m saying it can be rational to bear uncertainty.

[Sam Branthoover @SamBranthoover]

@New_Common_Law @NewmanJ_R @JulieBorowski Why would it be irrational to make a decision with little information? Is a calculator incorrect because the inputs were wrong?

[Josh Hendrickson @RebelEconProf]

Interesting that Daron would choose Zimbabwe to make his point. Why was Rhodesia prosperous whereas Zimbabwe is a disaster? How did Zimbabwe come about? Let’s examine where he thinks this fits in his Why Nations Fail narrative…

[Henry Thompson @henry_thomp]

Pleased to share that I am now serving as book review editor at Public Choice.

If you have recent(-ish) books relevant to Public Choice or if there are Public Choice-themed books you think deserve a review by you, please reach out.

[Sam Branthoover @SamBranthoover]

@GeorgeSelgin Isn’t unemployed capital “searching”? It seems you think unemployed assets are outside the production structure but search *is* a cost in the production structure, which the broken window substitutes them out of.

[Luke Heeney @heeney_luke]

Top 5 scariest responses to posting your paper online

[Sam Branthoover @SamBranthoover]

@Absolutemadlado @follynomics Can you both link what you’re referring to?

[Robert P. Murphy @BobMurphyEcon]

We’ve tried decades of laissez-faire in New York City, time to give government a chance

[Henry Thompson @henry_thomp]

New working paper in which I try to explain some common features of extortion practiced by Italian mafias.

[Bryan Cutsinger @BryanPCutsinger]

Landes: "[Coase] said he had gotten tired of antitrust because when the prices went up the judges said it was monopoly, when the prices went down, they said it was predatory pricing, and when they stayed the same, they said it was tacit collusion"

[Sam Branthoover @SamBranthoover]

@NewmanJ_R I keep thinking “they would technically still benefit from trade with the remaining people, but I don’t know how”

[Henry Thompson @henry_thomp]

New working paper with a modest aim: apply some simple (and classic) economics to risk from artificial superintelligence (ASI).

[Sam Branthoover @SamBranthoover]

@Jackbmeyer Put that 90s Cambridge font on my grave

[Sam Branthoover @SamBranthoover]

@BobMurphyEcon Sometimes. Where it’s efficient to do so

[Sam Branthoover @SamBranthoover]

Watching this debate unfold as a Leeson fan—

[Jonathan Newman @NewmanJ_R]

"There Ain't No Such Thing as a Sticky Price" - my latest at the QJAE. Main idea: the Misesian plain state of rest (PSR), which occurs after every realized exchange, implies that markets always clear, which means that non-market-clearing sticky prices don't exist. 🧵

[Sam Branthoover @SamBranthoover]

@Austro_Punk @craigduddyecon @MartinCabreraGR