Calculating the police against citizen homicide rate

by Edward Stringham

We hear of high profile cases of police killings, but few look at the larger picture of how often American citizens are killed by police. What is the rate at which police kill citizens and how does that compare to other homicide rates? Although official statistics have historically been scant, we now know that police killed 1,100 Americans in 2014 and 476 Americans in the first five months of 2015. Given that America has roughly 765,000 sworn police officers, that means the police-against-citizen kill rate is more than 145 per 100,000.

Let us put that into perspective. In most countries in Europe the national homicide rate is 1 per 100,000, so that means American police kill at 145 times the rate of the average European citizen. The two most violent countries in the world are Venezuela and Honduras with national homicide rates of 54 and 90 per 100,000. The U.S. government issues travel warnings stating: “The Department of State continues to warn U.S. citizens that the level of crime and violence in Honduras remains critically high” and “violent crime in Venezuela is pervasive.” If you are not comfortable vacationing in those countries, it is little wonder why so many Americans are uncomfortable with police who kill at more than 1.5 and 2.5 times the homicide rates of the two most violent countries.

Continue reading in my latest OpEd in the New York Daily News here.

Stringham appointed as the Davis Professor for Economic Organizations and Innovation at Trinity College

by Edward Stringham

I have enjoyed working with excellent colleagues and Ph.D. students at Texas Tech University, but I am thrilled to be hired as an endowed chair at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Undergraduate students interested in private enterprise, drop everything you are doing and enroll now! Parents of toddlers destined for success, create a fifteen year plan for your kids to send them our way. The first Episcopal college in New England, Wall Street pipeline Trinity has the fourth highest percentage of alumni millionaires. Actually, the atmosphere on its collegiate gothic campus is ideal in so many ways.

The Davis Endowment was made possible by legendary Wall Streeter and Forbes 400 member, Shelby Cullom Davis. The endowment sponsors classes, lectures, research on private enterprise, and reaches hundreds of students and thousands in the public. With more than $16 million, the Davis Endowment is one of the largest of its kind in the world.

Since its founding nearly 35 years ago, the Davis Endowment has been directed by Gerald Gunderson, longtime editor of the Journal of Private Enterprise, and author of A New Economic History of America and The Wealth Creators: An Entrepreneurial History of America, among others. Armen Alchian stated that Gunderson’s work, “stands head and shoulders above anything else in explaining our history and especially how the capitalist system operated and still operates when allowed.” Along with Gerald Gunderson, I will be working with John Alcorn, Bill Butos, and other great professors.

I am particularly grateful for Gerald Gunderson, Shelby Cullom Davis, and Shelby’s daughter, Diana Davis Spencer, for helping ensure that this endowment is where it is today. Gerald spent many years watching over the endowment and Diana Spencer was influential in speaking out in article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal when an ex-administrator was attempting to divert most of the funds out it. Diana Spencer worked with the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and the Philanthropy Roundtable in the fight to have her father’s donor intent honored. She stated “If colleges like Trinity undermine donors’ confidence that they will respect their wishes, they place at risk the generous support they receive from our foundation and so many others—and the benefits that inure to millions of students from this largesse.” (The ex-administrator who was attempting to divert the funds resigned shortly after coming up with another controversial idea , and more recently the Commonwealth of Virginia names him in a lawsuit for misuse of funds and violation of donor intent for his announced closure of Sweet Briar College.) A Pope Center report “An unusual victory for donor intent at Trinity College” documents some of the details of this multi-year battle and win. Gunderson wins first prize for the most persistent endowment director of all time.

I thank the search committee at Trinity, my professors (especially Peter Boettke), colleagues (especially Benjamin Powell), and countless others for helping me get here. I am looking forward to returning to my Yankee roots and working to build the premier liberal arts center for the study of private enterprise.

Why students interested in free markets should get their Ph.D. at Texas Tech University

by Ed Stringham

If you are interested in earning a Ph.D., or if you know someone who is, I strongly recommend studying at Texas Tech University where I have had the pleasure to teach this past year. At the center of the action is my good friend, Benjamin Powell, who directs the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University. I always found Powell impressive, but over the past couple years he has shown great program building and leadership skills to launch the Free Market Institute programs. Last year they hired me and the most excellent Adam Martin, bringing the number of George Mason University Ph.D.s on campus to four. This month they hired Alexander Salter who earned his Ph.D. from George Mason University in 2014, and they may also be hiring an economist with a long affiliation with PERC and another scholar who is well known in Austrian economic circles. Stay tuned.

Here are some reasons why students interested in free markets should look into studying at Texas Tech. The university is large and growing with more than 35,000 students and a $1 billion endowment. Walk around campus and observe the architecture to the flowers as small indications of how well the university is run.

The administration is actually full of supportive people with can do attitudes that are uncommon on most campuses, and the university plans to continue to move up in the rankings. (Speaking of rankings, as a New Englander, I like how Wes Welker and Danny Amendola played football at Texas Tech, but alas the university’s football ranking was not as good this year as in other years.) The campus is also nicely situated next to a bunch of good housing, restaurants, and bars giving it a close to ideal college town feel with most of what one needs in walking distance. The people in Lubbock are also very nice and the university lacks unkempt hippies found elsewhere.

Although the university is large, Ph.D. students associated with the Free Market Institute have a strong sense of community and can get a lot of face time with professors and visiting scholars. I enjoyed teaching economics of entrepreneurship and the economics of regulation to some great Ph.D. students over the past year. Peter Boettke was the Ludwig von Mises Visiting Scholar with a couple two week visits and Joshua Hall was a Big Twelve Visiting Fellow as well. In the past year and a half we had Walter Williams and Andrew Napolitano help fill 800 person auditoriums and top scholars including Vernon Smith, Israel Kirzner and Robert Higgs present on campus. The Friday research workshop and other seminars also had many interesting speakers including Scott Beaulier, Bryan Caplan, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Matt Kibbe, Peter Klein, Robert Lawson, Peter Lewin, Edward Lopez, Bryan McCannon, Phillip Magness, Daniel Sutter, and Richard Wager. We also cohosted conferences with the Institute for Humane Studies and the Free Market Roadshow with speakers including Steve Bradley, Enrico Colombatto, John Charalambakis, and Barbara Kolm.

Powell even has a television show where he discusses the research of many of the scholars who visit campus. Of course the best episodes featured me! Drop everything you are doing and check it out.

Expect great things at Texas Tech University in the future. Congrats to Powell and others who are making all of this possible. If you are a student, find out more about the programs and fellowships here.

Organizing sessions for the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics

By Ed Stringham

I am pleased to have been selected as the next President of the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics. Many economists including Karen Vaughn, Mario Rizzo, Peter Lewin, Steve Horwitz, and Peter Boettke, have done great work and help make the society far bigger than I would have predicted.

Sessions over the years have included some great and lively debates between Walter Block and Gordon Tullock. Chris Coyne gave an excellent presidential talk last year on problems with the theory of public goods. I had the good fortune to win two Paper of the Year awards from the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics (read the articles now here and here!), so thanks to everyone who made this latest honor possible.

One of my duties is organizing the sessions at the Southern Economic Association meetings and this year’s paper submissions are due this week. Submit your paper proposal to me today! Details are here.

Economics Music Video Contest: Markets Promote Peace

by Edward Stringham

As a professor, I am a  fan of rigorous economic research, but I am also a fan of helping students learn about how important economics is in an engaging way. John Papola did an excellent job with the Keynes Versus Hayek music videos (especially the second one with yours truly), and over the past couple years I have had students make economics music videos. Think it is impossible to have music videos about Supply and Demand or Economic Value is Subjective? Think again! The results of the 2012 Supply and Demand Music Video Contest and the 2013 Economic Value is Subjective Video Contest have  been fantastic and have had more than 100,000 views on Youtube. See the winning entries below.

I am pleased to announce the 2014 Economics Music Video Contest on Markets Promote Peace. Winners get $2,500 and their professor gets $500. According to the great 19th century liberal, Richard Coben, markets help change a relationship between strangers from one of indifference, or even contempt, to one of mutual benefit. People who may not have cared about each other, now see the other party as an ally. Militarism, on the other hand, causes conflict. To Cobden an important, more humane, and more effective substitute for militarism in the international realm is the expansion of markets.

Continue reading about the contest here: http://hackleychair.wordpress.com/2-economics-music-video-contest/

Winners of  the 2013 Value is Subjective Music Video Contest

 

Winners of the 2012 Supply and Demand Music Video Contest

 

Alcohol and economic “success in life”

by Edward Stringham*

Don Boudreaux is a great economist and a consistent defender of letting individuals make economic choices for themselves. Yet I would take a different approach than his recent post that defends drug legalization by criticizing alcohol.

Boudreax writes, “But the same is true for alcohol – another drug that ruins many lives and contributes to no one’s ‘success in life.’”

Here Boudreaux appears to have paid too much time listening to the prohibitionists, and missed “No Booze? You May Lose” coauthored by me and Bethany Peters for the Journal of Labor Research. The article, which was mentioned in numerous outlets from Time to Maxim, found that social drinkers earn significantly more than otherwise similar non-drinkers. If one’s measure of success in life includes superior labor market outcomes then drinking should be viewed as a positive rather than a negative.

Continue reading here

*Edward Stringham, Hackley Endowed Professor for the Study of Capitalism and Free Enterprise, Fayetteville State University.

Supply and Demand in Music

by Edward Peter Stringham*

Many economists are criticized for being unable to communicate their ideas in am intelligible and non-boring way. How many people, for example, jump to listen about a debate about the Austrian theory of the business cycle? It turns out quite a lot. John Papola and Russ Roberts demonstrated to the world that lots people will actually listen to an economics discussion if presented in an interesting way.  Their videos recently surpassed 4.5. million views. They did an amazing job especially with their good casting decisions for the reporter at the end of the second video.

This year I decided to run a video contest for students to create music videos that help illustrate the laws of supply and demand.