Plain Sense Economics

N. Gregory Mankiw posted a semi-tongue-in-cheek note on his blog suggesting that we consider a system where email senders pay to send a message. One of Mankiw’s readers opined…
I think an excellent Pigouvian tax would be a tax on emails. Many emails involve a negative externality (I don’t really want to receive [...]

This article from The Economist describes a not-quite-a-market for agricultural water uses in California.
Farmers like Mr Errotabere have begun to use water more efficiently, dripping it through perforated hoses rather than flooding fields. There is a growing market in water trades between farmers. Most important, the state has set up a water bank. Farmers north [...]

I generally grate my teeth when I bother to read the editorial columns in the Wall Street Journal. Today, one of them had a dose of plain sense. When speaking of the current congestion at major airport hubs, the writer suggested

Meantime, economics offers a better way to manage scarcity: Use prices to ration capacity at [...]

Friedman is an accessible writer, and has spent many years in and around the Middle East and other parts of the world.
In this blog – he writes about how a gasoline tax, imposed just after 9/11, would have changed many things for the better.
It is a good read.