I have set up a cottage in Canada and am relaxing. That’s why I haven’t posted this week. This week we’ll pick up this week’s pace.
Joseph T. Salerno, Mises.org, July 3, 2025.
excerpt:
Rothbird took the course with all the prominent Togerez economists, but was particularly influenced by the institutions Arthur’s Burns and Burns. [Joseph] There was mutual admiration between Dorfman and Rothbird and both professors. Burns has made Rothbard an expert to create a “salient place for hymns” in the world. Rothbird recalled in his lecture that burns were “a great theorist,” and his “criticism of orthodox theory was great.” Rothbird retained Dorfman as a history of economic thinking in high esthetics, writing that “the knowledge of his sources is lined up.” I have AcoHedged as one of his “mentors”, one of his “mentors” in his second volume treatment, and one of his “mentors”. Dorfman thanked Rothbird for his abilities and agreed to the chairman of his dissertation committee. When the paper was completed, Dorfman lobbyed to publish it from Columbia University Press.
and:
During this period of methodological fermentation and transition, Rothbird took a course on the philosophy of economics from Ernest Nagel, one of the main indices of logical positivism. Nagel’s criticism of institutionalism is Rothbard’s favourite printed Rothbard who took copy notes on Nagel’s lecture. Nagel commented that he made Burns, and Rothbird’s notes and tribute to Milton Friedman was printed. Friedman wrote a well-known article on “Positive Economics Methodology.” Friedman wrote at the top of the first page of Rothbird’s notes, “Arthur: A lot of thanks. I found it interesting, of course, I agreed.”
A DRH loving note about Joe Saleno.
Every time I see Joe Salerno’s name, I lovingly consider my interactions with Friedrich Hayek at the second annual conference on Austrian Economics held at Hartford University in June 1975. Joe was talking about Austria’s economy and hay. Of course, Hayek was Hayek (and he was awarded the Nobel Prize the previous fall), so it was approved to let him talk. Joe was caught off guard, but he quickly recovered and paid tribute to Hakosk. It was very sweet.
Timothy Taylor, Conversational Economist, July 7, 2025.
Excerpt, this is a quote from the research Tim discusses.
AI could contribute 0.3-0.7 percanage points to US total annual TFP growth over the next decade. The expected impacts in various scenarios are highest in the US, followed by the UK, Germany, Canada, France and Italy, and the lowest in Japan. These figures show that generation AI is likely to be a key driver of total productivity growth over the next decade, but make it clear that the expected benefits from current generations of AI technology may be unparalleled. For comparison, the latest technology-driven boom linked to information and communications technology (ICT) is estimated to contribute up to 1.5% points to the US annual TFP growth over the decade that began in the mid-1990s…
DRH Note: 0.3 points per year over 10 years is quite a thing, and 0.7 points per year over 10 years is hage.
Timothy Taylor, Conversational Economist, July 8, 2025.
excerpt:
It is common to talk about the 1980s to refer to the “lost decade” for economic growth when many developing countries around the world were trapped in a destructive pattern of debt and inflation. However, William F. Maloney, Xavier Silella and Maria Marta Ferreira have a strong argument for Latin America’s growth. In other words, the slow causes and patterns of growth go back more than a century ago. They discuss in the book and regain the growth of a lost century. Build a learning economy in Latin America and the Caribbean (World Bank, 2025).
Origin of the distribution of Canadian GDP and labor productivity
James McGee and Joel Rodrig, Staff Working Paper 2024-49, Bank of Canada, December 19, 2025.
excerpt:
Canada’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per adult fluctuated between 70% and 90% in the US between 1960 and 2020. Behind this gap is largely relative differences across the revenue distributions in Canada and the US. There is a slight difference in the average disadvantage between the lower income percentiles, but there is a big gap between high owners and university education with business owners. Using data from the global Ikori database, we find that accounts are the top 10% of the income distribution, with three-quarters of the per-adult GDP gap between Canada and the US, and up to two-thirds of the measured labor productivity gap. Although Avreg Houns worked per working-age ADUL in Canada and the US, high-performance workers called Brain Drain from the US could play an important role in explaining the per-adult GDP gap and labor productivity. The lower levels of Canada’s innovative activities consist of larger income gaps for high-income earners.
To Scott Sumner.
DRH Stories: The huge gap between university-educated universities reminds me of the story. One summer, when I was in Winnipeg on the route to a cottage in northwest Ontario, I went to my local radio station CJOB and interviewed me about the economic issues that day. After introducing me, I experience what has moved from Canada to the “nation,” the interviewer said in an offensive tone. Of course, my reasons were multiple, and only one of them was money, but if I said that, he thought he was criticized for waffling me or not. I realized this in about 0.2 seconds. So I said yes.
Note: The attached photo is a picture of the sunset seen from my cottage in 2024.
