Category Archives: Editorial

Rents and Rent-Seeking

The idea of rent is quite old, going back thousands of years to the ancient world. It originally applied primarily to land, and meant that some people had ownership rights to the land and could demand payment (rent) from anyone who … Continue reading

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A Trip to Lexington, Kentucky

My wife and I are both born in Massachusetts and met and got married there, but in 1981 an offer from the University of Michigan to fund my doctoral studies proved to be irresistible and we moved to Michigan. So … Continue reading

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Activism 101

As someone who first got politically active in the 1960s as an anti-war activist, I have learned a few things about how to do this. And it starts with the observation that some amount of effort is required to have … Continue reading

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eBooks and the Web: A Comparison

I recently finished reading Clayton Christensen’s classic work The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms To Fail, which I read on my Android phone using the Amazon Kindle app. I will probably post a review separately, but this … Continue reading

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Economics and Abundance

When you are looking at the issues around publishers, media companies, copyright, and DRM, you are looking at economics. As a former economics professor that is something I like to think about, and I believe there are some interesting implications … Continue reading

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