Megan McArdle dialogue at AEI

You will find the video here, the dialogue is with me and Tim Carney.

The underlying question behind the book is when the general possibility of error helps you learn and when it leads you off the precipice, never to return.  As I understand Megan’s argument, additional error-making propensity has positive individual and social returns at the margin, which means we should offer implicit or sometimes explicit subsidies to experimentation.  That means a liberal bankruptcy law, relatively easy divorce, and a focus of subsidies on areas with high fixed costs.  In other words, the National Science Foundation should worry more about labs and less about individual researchers.

As I had predicted, this is proving to be a breakout book for Megan.  You can buy her book here.  There is more on the book here.