Economists Need Field Trip

Accuracy in Academia ^ | February 14, 2015 | Malcolm A. Kline

[Academiadotorg]

At least one economist gets off campus frequently enough to see what the real economy looks like and, naturally, he’s a free market type. Perhaps he should take his colleagues on a field trip.

“American businesses spend almost $2 trillion per year (or roughly another 10 percent of GDP [Gross Domestic Product]) complying with regulations, including the 79,311 pages of the 2013 Federal Register,” Nikolai G. Wenzel, a visiting assistant professor of economics at Florida Gulf Coast University, said at a Fund for American Studies conference last November. “Think for a moment that the Declaration of Independence adds up to about 1,300 words.”

“By contrast, current U. S. regulations on the sale of cabbage add up to a staggering 7,800 words—and this is nothing compared to European Union regulations on the sale of cabbage, which add up to almost 27,000 words. Then again, the European Union was not founded on a principle of limited government.” Professor Wenzel is also a research fellow at the University of Paris law school.

“Moving from the macroeconomic to the personal, an estimated 30 percent of the American workforce is subject to occupational licensing (up from 5 percent in the 1950s),” Professor Wenzel informed the audience at the TFAS seminar. “In Louisiana, it is illegal to sell flowers if one is not a licensed florist, which involves taking a written test and making four arrangements in four hours for a panel of already-licensed florists.”

Happy Valentine’s Day!

[Academiadotorg]

we actually found an economist with a working knowledge of the world.

[arthurus]

404

[DannyTN]

It's almost certainly slander to claim most economists don't have interaction with the real world. It's doubtful that any amount of interaction with the real market can keep an economist from getting twisted up in the theoretical world.

And the claims about cabbage regulation are apparently untrue. What regulations exist are about chemicals applied to cabbage. Infinitely more important than being able to identify and arrange flowers properly.
sour cabbage
sNOPES ON CABBAGE

And I may be over-reacting but when I read "free market type", I think "Free international trade type". The lowering of protective tariffs on the US market has devastated many of our industries and resulted in our high unemployment. The high unemployment has enabled big government to an unprecedented degree.