Econtalk biases.
I enjoy listening to and learn a lot from the
EconTalk
podcasts hosted by the economist Russ Roberts.
And it's fun to observe when his (economic) beliefs
override reality.
In
Kling on Prosperity, Poverty, and Economics 2.0
at about the 34 minute mark there is a discussion of
the very interesting article in the
New Yorker of December 14, 2009 by Atul Gawande:
Kling: What Gawande said is that the key to
a better health care system is more trial
and error on the part of government. And
I just cringed when I saw that because I
think government is the most ineffective
trial and error mechanism out there.
... my jaw dropped when I read that.
Roberts: Yea, mine did too. He's an
interesting guy but I thought it an
unusual claim.
What is funny (or sad, depending on how one looks at it),
is that a big part of Gawande's article was about how
government run agriculture programs in the early 1900's
successfully
used trial and error to greatly improve
agriculture in this country when the free markets could not.
And the gist of the article was that government could do
that again with health care.
This is a great example of
cognitive dissonance:
if one's belief in free markets is strong enough, then any
example of government doing a better job is completely ignored.