The Skeptical Economist: Complex Systems and Social Incentives: 
My inaugural lecture at Royal Holloway. You can view the slides here.
[Posted at 06/12/2024 01:36 AM by David K. Levine 
]by David K. Levine
Two particular areas I have spoken about are intellectual property (bad) and behavioral economics (doomed).
I have also spent a good part of my career working in macroeconomic theory including monetary theory and particularly on frictions such as liquidity constraints and production chains that contribute to economic fluctuations and recessions. I have published scientific papers with a number of top economists on these subjects, among others, Tim Kehoe, Ed Prescott, Michael Woodford, and Paul Romer. Macroeconomics is a controversial area full of charlatans of all types (including some well known but elderly economists - most of whom never worked on macroeconomics) and an area in which the solid day-to-day efforts of many young economists to advance the science is dismissed by people who have no idea what they are talking about. Most working economists do not have the time to defend themselves against the onslaught of thousands of ignoramuses. As a more senior member of the profession I take it as a duty to offset the nonsense professed by some, including some who should know better, by explaining what modern theories say in fact and not in the imagination of charlatans.
The Skeptical Economist: Complex Systems and Social Incentives: My inaugural lecture at Royal Holloway. You can view the slides here.
[Posted at 06/12/2024 01:36 AM by David K. Levine ]
Appeasement and Deterrence:
Lee Ohanian and I have a new paper arguing that appeasement is under-appreciated: When to Appease and When to Punish: Hitler, Putin, and Hamas
[Posted at 04/07/2024 01:36 AM by David K. Levine ]
Conflict in Ukraine:
Some thoughts about the future of the conflict in Ukraine on the EUI Blog.
[Posted at 11/28/2023 02:37 AM by David K. Levine ]
Social Mechanisms and Political Economy: The Book:
Our new book available for download: Levine, Mattozzi and Modica study how special interests such as cartels and lobbyists together with political parties influence our well-being. Drawing on existing and ongoing theoretical, empirical, and experimental research by the authors and others, the book develops a unified theory of peer pressure and social networks. The theory is firmly grounded in modern economic and game theory and is based on incentive constraints, auction theory, learning theory, and stochastic evolution.
[Posted at 12/19/2022 02:51 AM by David K. Levine ]
Podcast on Intellectual Property:
An interview by Niklas Anzinger about regulation,
innovation, and intellectual property
[Posted at 11/16/2022 02:27 AM by David K. Levine ]
Tale of Two Subsidies: Why the Afghan Army did Not Fight but the Ukrainian Army Did:
See the video or read the paper.
[Posted at 04/17/2022 07:14 AM by David K. Levine ]
Who cares about patent waivers for vaccines?:
Roughly speaking the answer should be "nobody." A short article by Michele Boldrin, Flavio Toxvaerd and myself.
[Posted at 05/15/2021 04:41 AM by David K. Levine ]
Data Analytics and Covid-19:
A video of a discussion of role and importance of social science data analysis in combating the pandemic at Bocconi.
[Posted at 04/24/2021 03:24 AM by David K. Levine ]
Are vaccination pauses a good idea?:
Peter Hansen and I think not: we have written an essay explaining why not If you agree please share it.
[Posted at 04/22/2021 05:08 AM by David K. Levine ]
Forecasting elections:
It is all about voter turnout. Here is what 538 does not understand.
[Posted at 11/02/2020 05:37 AM by David K. Levine ]
Global Warming: What Sort of Mess Have We Made:
An essay detailing my conclusions from reading the economic literature on climate change.
[Posted at 12/03/2019 04:33 AM by David K. Levine ]
An interview on intellectual property:
With James Corbett of the corbettreport
[Posted at 07/17/2019 07:34 AM by David K. Levine ]
Intervention:
and peace?
[Posted at 10/18/2018 02:29 AM by David K. Levine ]
An Interview with an Economist:
An economist speaks (me) . A nice interview by Arnaud Marthouret:. Arnaud runs an architectural photography business. Yes I do know some real people!
[Posted at 08/15/2018 03:04 AM by David K. Levine ]
Elon Musk and Me:
An article Newsweek about the concept and benefits of open patents: "open patents could bring monetary gain sooner. 'Even though you only have a share of the market,' Levine says, 'you have a share of a growing market rather than a larger share of a not-growing market.'"
[Posted at 06/06/2018 01:09 AM by David K. Levine ]
How I became an economist:
As told to some fellow UCLA alums
[Posted at 10/09/2017 04:32 AM by David K. Levine ]
Lies and damn lies:
A new essay Confirmatory Bias, the Bayesian Detective and an Inconvenient Truth[Posted at 09/14/2017 01:29 PM by David K. Levine ]
Perilous Populism:
We have a new website about the perils of populism discussing our research on democracy, corruption, lobbying and the behavior of political groups and how it may help.
[Posted at 04/18/2017 05:13 AM by David K. Levine ]
Why Polls Are Wrong:
I do not expect polls or pundits to predict elections. Here is why.
[Posted at 11/10/2016 08:55 AM by David K. Levine ]
Evolution in Action:
An interview with Federico Weinschelbaum about our paper Levine, D. K., S. Modica, F. Weinschelbaum and F. Zurita [2015]: "Evolving to the Impatience Trap: The Example of the Farmer-Sheriff Game," AEJ: Microeconomics, 7: 295-317. In Spanish, English translation from Federico here
[Posted at 08/27/2016 07:55 AM by David K. Levine ]
The Keynesian Delusionists:
In rough chronological order, the delusionists:
Poor Brad - thieves believe everyone is a thief, those incapable of rational reasoning believe nobody can reason rationally. By contrast,
here is a reasoned response.
This one is reasoned - although as I point out in my rebuttal, hopelessly confused. Then we are back to silly rants.
First Krugman
and again Krugman
and finally Brad loses it entirely.
You might contrast the tone of those
who actually do scientific work.
[Posted at 03/16/2015 03:16 AM by David K. Levine ]
The Keynesian Illusion:
Explained here
[Posted at 03/15/2015 02:14 AM by David K. Levine ]
NPR on Patents:
An NPR program on patents based on an interview with Michele and me.
[Posted at 07/31/2014 04:05 AM by David K. Levine ]
Is Behavioral Economics Doomed?:
Now available everywhere From Openbook Publishers - a new open access book about traditional and behavioral economics.
[Posted at 06/20/2012 08:05 AM by David K. Levine ]
Is Economics a Science:
For a guy who thinks that methodological disputes are boring and that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, I seem to be getting in to a lot of them lately. First we had to listen to Paul Krugman spouting about how bad economics was when he was a graduate student. You can find a brief effort to bring him up to date on developments in the last three decades here. This led to a debate with philosopher of science Alex Rosenberg on bloggingheads tv. It's mostly an elaboration on my "Is Behavioral Economics Doomed" - although I'd have thought that the fact that the Keynesian theory that Paul likes was extensively examined for two decades and ultimately rejected because it was falsified would be evidence that economics is a science. I guess it isn't for Paul: for him Keynesian is an article of faith despite the fact it has been falsified.
[Posted at 10/05/2009 11:44 AM by David K. Levine ]
In the media:
If you want media attention, working on sexy topics like behavioral economics apparently pays off...
[Posted at 03/12/2009 01:42 AM by David K. Levine ]
Chuck Norris, the bailout, and me:
A good man to have at your back:
The bail-a-holics Posted: October 06, 2008
by Chuck Norris
"Speaking of great minds not in government, I agree with David Levine, professor of economics from Washington University, who said, 'This seems to be a particularly bad bill. We have seen pretty clearly that all the bad things that were promised to happen if the bill didn't pass on Monday or on Tuesday or whatever particular day of the week it might have been, haven't happened, they are not going to happen, they are not going to happen next week, next month. I really wish that the chairman of Federal Reserve and the secretary, the treasurer were up there telling people that bad things are not going to happen, if they do happen they won't happen immediately. There is time to deliberate over a good plan. This is a bad plan; it got even worse since it was turned down by the House. There is very little to like in all of this.'"
[Posted at 10/06/2008 02:29 AM by David K. Levine ]
Against Intellectual Monopoly:
Michele's and my book about copyrights and patents from Cambridge University Press is out. You can order it on Amazon or the publisher Cambridge University Press It will remain available online. We argue that the only solution to the problem of intellectual monopoly is to get rid of it entirely.
[Posted at 07/11/2008 02:20 PM by David K. Levine ]
Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice:
New York Times July 15, 2007 Sunday Late Edition - Final, BYLINE: By MICHAEL FITZGERALD.
"A Patent Is Worth Having, Right? Well, Maybe Not"
"Mr. Bessen's critique of the patent system does not go so far as that of economists like Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, who argue that the patent system should be abolished."
[Posted at 07/15/2007 02:46 AM by David K. Levine ]
Was Napster Right:
article in The Region by Douglas Clement
based on Boldrin & Levine. Reprinted in Reason Online,
also see the Slashdot
thread on the book and on
the Reason article.
[Posted at 04/15/2003 08:58 AM by David K. Levine ]
Review:
Discussion
at the Library of Economics and Liberty.
[Posted at 02/20/2003 06:27 PM by David K. Levine ]
Review:
Slashdot
thread on The Case Against Intellectual Monopoly
[Posted at 02/15/2003 06:25 PM by David K. Levine ]
Review:
Was
Napster Right: article in The Region by Douglas Clement
based on Boldrin & Levine
[Posted at 09/01/2002 06:35 PM by David K. Levine ]