Month: November 2003

Consider this list of newspapers per capita. This is the number of papers, not how many people read papers. Here is the top ten:

1. San Marino 108.19 per 1000000 people
2. Gibraltar 36.08 per 1000000 people
3. Andorra 29.24 per 1000000 people
4. Macau 21.65 per 1000000 people
5. Greece 19.45 per 1000000 people
6. Norway 17.9 per 1000000 people
7. Bermuda 15.63 per 1000000 people
8. Estonia 11.3 per 1000000 people
9. Switzerland 11.09 per 1000000 people
10. Latvia 10.99 per 100000 people

Rounding out the top fifteen are Iceland, Cyprus, and Malta, along with such giants as Sweden and Finland. And note the gap between the frontrunner, San Marino, and number two; San Marino has almost three times as many newspapers per capita.

The United States is not in the top sixty-seven and does not stand on the list at all, it appears not to be in the database. A separate data source lists America as having 1,228 daily newspapers, which if correct would put us in per capita terms at number 28, between Mauritius and Bolivia. Why so low? Well, we rely on TV more, we have more concentrated media (most cities have only one daily paper, and perhaps smaller countries like the gossipy element that follows from a large number of small circulation newspapers.

Note: I have modified the initial version of this post, due to helpful comments from Frank Quist.

Most libertarian economists oppose drug reimportation, on the grounds that the resulting lower prices would harm the incentives for R&D. Richard Epstein provides a good statement of this case, with links to the relevant debates, including some libertarian dissenters, such as Ed Crane and Roger Pilon, both of Cato.

I have wondered, however, whether libertarians ought to reconsider their opposition to reimportation. Recall that the libertarian position paints the FDA as a significant obstacle to drug research.

I suspect that allowing drug reimportation would, in the long-run, break down the authority of the FDA. Once Americans are looking to abroad for medicines, the flood gates will be opened. They will want to buy medicines from Mexico, Europe, and indeed from all over the world. These medicines, of course, will not have met with FDA approval. It is not a matter of pure logic that legal reimportation would lead to this broader class of imported drugs, but I think it is what the political equilibrium would look like. Illegal drug importation is already on the rise; legal reimportation would legitimize and publicize the overall idea of getting drugs from other countries.

So, if we allow reimportation, the FDA will either have to become much stronger, and more intrusive (in conjunction with other governmental agencies, such as customs perhaps), or the FDA will cede much of its effective power, while likely keeping its nominal powers. But in the long run it is hard to see how to enforce restrictions on drug importation, especially once reimportation is legal. Drugs don’t take up much space, and the exact nature of their content is not easily tested. You can have a customs dog sniff for pot, but that same dog cannot tell whether a drug is of pure quality of adulterated, or is something else altogether. If libertarian think that the FDA does more harm than good, perhaps they should welcome reimportation as moving us toward a greater reliance on markets.