Does Market Failure Justify Government Intervention? (with Michael Munger) 6/17/24 

Excellent quality analysis of government bureaucracy from Russ towards the end of this episode.

Insightful conversation! Big fan from South Africa.

Fantastic

great discussion

Is there a such thing as the wrong price? Undesirable perhaps, but wrong? Not sure if that makes sense.

Professor Munger begins by talking about large price fluctuations, like the 1929 stock market price collapse, as an example of markets not getting prices right. Professor Roberts responds with a discussion of the Wright brothers' innovation and how it came about, but Roberts fails to fully enunciate why this augurs against Munger's case that Pigou was wiser than we give him credit for in arguing for bodies of experts to play greater roles. What I wish Roberts would have seen is that it is impossible for prices to be gotten right by anyone when there are with goods that have not yet been invented, no way for anyone to get the prices (of yet-to-be-invented goods) right. So Munger's emphasis of Pigou's desire to "get prices right" seems largely inapplicable to what Schumpeter considered the most essential process advantaging capitalism -- namely, creative destruction. I wonder if Pigou gave any thought to Schumpeter?

First here!