Top MR Posts of 2016

Marginal Revolution University grew tremendously in 2016 and I’m thrilled with our Principles of Macroeconomics course and excited about all the new videos that we will release in 2017–including videos from India where I will be working on sabbatical. It was a good year for me personally and professionally. But 2016 was a very bad year for the world and this was reflected by the posts on Marginal Revolution.

The number one post of the year said it all: What the hell is going on? As Tyler put it in that post, “Donald Trump may get the nuclear suitcase, a cranky “park bench” socialist took Hillary Clinton to the wire, many countries are becoming less free, and the neo-Nazi party came very close to assuming power in Austria.”

Looking back now, it is clear that Tyler foresaw where the world was going and he starting working hard to understand the trend long before others were forced to retrospect. All of the following posts were in the top 20:

• If Trump Wins What is the Best Theory of Why?
• What is Neo-Reaction?
• The regulatory state and the importance of a non-vindictive President
• The Criticism of Trump that Few Will Utter
• What are the Core Differences Between Republicans and Democrats.

The second highest viewed post was actually my post, Economist Removed From Plane for Algebra, which was rather clickbaity although at least it wasn’t a hoax. I had two other top-ten posts, both of which were substantive. First was India’s Demonetization–What is Next? which pointed to all the right issues on this still evolving monetary shock. A number of Indian bloggers and writers picked up on this post. Also in the top ten was the surprising, Homicide Data by Weapon.

My posts on housing, Collective Property in Palo Alto, Laissez-faire in Tokyo Land Use, and the Japanese Zoning System were all widely read. As was Economics on Buying versus Renting a House which led to Tyler and me debating the issue for Econ Duel.

Other widely read posts of mine were:

• The Revolution has Begun: Beyond Meat
• Against Historic Preservation
• Guru (perhaps the most free market movie ever made).

I have saved, however, the best to last. Coming in at number 50 was a strange, shocking, only Tyler could have written, post. At the time not enough people took it seriously but it bears repeated and careful reading:

Does Lucifer in fact inhabit the corpus of Hillary Clinton?

Yes, 2016 was that kind of year.