Corporate History
When the Trains Stopped Running
The night Penn Central collapsed and what its downfall reveals about incentives, debt, and the slow decay of institutions.
June 20, 197016 min read
Essays
Arguments worth the reading time
Considered pieces that follow a single thread of incentive to its often uncomfortable conclusion. Read slowly; that is the point.
Markets
When Everyone Is Rational and the Outcome Is Absurd
Collective irrationality rarely requires irrational people. It requires a structure in which sensible individual choices compound into a result no one wanted.
May 20, 20269 min read
Public Finance
The Tax That Wasn't About Revenue
Some taxes are designed to raise money. Others are designed to be seen raising money. Telling the two apart explains more politics than any manifesto.
May 3, 202611 min read
Institutions
Trust as Infrastructure
Institutions are expensive precisely because they let us stop checking. We examine what happens to an economy when the cost of trust quietly rises.
April 15, 202614 min read