New issue of Econ Journal Watch
The End of Truth: In 1944, Friedrich Hayek warned that traveling down the anti-liberal road would lead us into serfdom under rogue government. One chapter, “The End of Truth,” explained the kit necessary to sustain the new feudalism, the kit of propaganda and clientelism promoting big lies that must be protected by censorship, intimidation, and persecution. Republished by permission.
Isaiah Berlin on Karl Marx: An earlier exchange (1, 2, 3, 4) touched upon whether Karl Marx’s having become a big deal was adventitious or destined. Two selections from Isaiah Berlin are here republished, by permission, to suggest that it was rather destined: (1) a selection from Berlin’s book Karl Marx; (2) “Marxism and the International in the Nineteenth Century”. Daniel Klein provides a Foreword.
Housing supply liberalization and recent research: Jason Sorens examines three recent papers that might lend support to opponents of liberalization. One paper finds that housing supply has no long-run effect on local rents, while two others find that restricting housing supply might translate into amenities. Sorens argues that the evidence so far still supports the conclusion that supply-side zoning liberalization typically lowers local rents over meaningful time horizons without generating disamenities substantial enough to overcome the welfare benefits of liberalization. Greg Howard and Jack Liebersohn, the authors of one of the commented-on papers, reply to Sorens.
Bubble Talk: An American Economic Review article by Jianjun Miao and Pengfei Wang purports to “provide a theory of rational stock price bubbles.” In the previous issue, Tomohiro Hirano and Alexis Akira Toda argued that Miao and Wang’s ‘bubble’ talk is inapt. Now, Miao and Wang reply, and Hirano and Toda rejoin.
Incorporation and productivity in Russia 1894–1908: A 2020 American Economic Review article by Amanda Gregg compares factory productivity among corporations and non-corporations in late Imperial Russia, and finds that corporations outperformed. Here, Nikita Lychakov scrutinize Gregg’s data and methods and suggests that the claimed causal relationship between the corporate form and productivity remains unestablished. Amand Gregg replies.
Online grocery shopping in Russia: In a 2024 article in Sustainability, Michael Olumekor, Harman Preet Singh, and Ibrahim Abdullah Alhamad explore factors driving the regional uptake of online grocery shopping in Russia. Here, Muzaffarjon Ahunov and Leo Van Hove suggest that their analysis has multiple serious weaknesses and that their results should be disregarded. Ahunov and Van Hove show, for example, that internet access does play a critical role.
The Impartial Spectator Rises: Daniel Klein, Nicholas Swanson, and Jeffrey Young (KSY) comment on twelve scholars: T.D. Campbell, Samuel Fleischacker, Fonna Forman-Barzilai, Gilbert Harman, Gavin Kennedy, A.L. Macfie, James Otteson, Maria Pia Paganelli, D.D. Raphael, Eric Schliesser, Craig Smith, and Jack Russell Weinstein. KSY allege that they misunderstand “impartial spectator” in Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments—specifically, that they flatten significations of “impartial spectator.” KSY explain a paragraph in which Smith distinguishes “the man within the breast” and “impartial spectator”— a paragraph elided by most of the commented-on authors. Those authors are hereby invited to respond for publication in the next issue (March 2026) of this Journal.
EJW Audio:
Jason Sorens on Housing Supply Liberalization and Recent Research