Michael Munger
Senior Fellow
Michael Munger is a Professor of Political Science, Economics, and Public Policy at Duke University and Senior Fellow of the American Institute for Economic Research.
His degrees are from Davidson College, Washingon University in St. Louis, and Washington University.
Munger’s research interests include regulation, political institutions, and political economy.
Books by Michael Munger
-
•
I Fought the Google, and the Google Won
“The plaintiffs were all taxpayers in NC, but we had no actual say about how those payments taken from us were to be spent, even if the spending violated the Constitution of the state.” ~Michael Munger
-
•
Argentina Agonistes: The Separation of Money and State
“The Argentine peso has lost 93 percent of its value in just the past 4 years. Anyone who could carry out transactions using dollars always did so; holding pesos was little different from simply setting your wealth on fire.” ~Michael Munger
-
•
Taxation as Social Justice
“The goal is not to raise revenue so we can support the poor; instead, the US is pursuing the simpler goal of eliminating private concentrations of wealth.” ~Michael Munger
-
•
State Development Incentives: Taxes, Investment, and Tullock Auctions
“State ‘incentive’ packages do more than pay companies the difference in costs. Politicians have every reason to pay up to, and beyond, the entire economic benefit to the state, because their calculus counts costs as benefits.” ~ Michael Munger
-
•
State Development Incentives: The Only Solution is Not to Play
“The incentives of politicians and the goals of citizens can diverge, and nowhere is that divergence more obvious than in the case of targeted, private benefits to specific corporations paid for at public expense.” ~ Michael Munger
-
•
The Ludwig von Mises: Catallactic Converter
” An emergent system of division of labor based on impersonal commercial exchange, then, can substitute for benevolence.” ~ Michael Munger
-
•
The New (Old) Threat of “Runaway Bureaucracy”
“The notion of ‘independent’ agencies was a holdover conceit of the Progressive era—the FTC was founded in 1914—based on the idea that citizens were faced with large, concentrated forces they had no hope of dealing with, but which could be managed with the seraphic wisdom of benevolent experts.” ~ Michael Munger
-
•
Economics is Not Easy
” Since everyone looks to prices for accurate information about relative scarcity, having prices that are being inflated artificially is misleading, and results in multiple different economic actors all trying to expand at once.” ~ Michael Munger
-
•
Adam Smith Can Save Your Golf Game
“Golf is a great way to learn to do things for yourself. Even when you’re playing with other people, you’re playing only against yourself, keeping your own score and holding yourself accountable to a set of rules that it is your own responsibility to internalize.” ~ Michael Munger
-
•
Adam Smith Discovered (and Solved!) the Trolley Problem
“Smith makes a claim about human sentiments that seems monstrous, but which is perfectly plausible: we focus mostly on ourselves.” ~ Michael Munger
-
•
I Fought the Google, and the Google Won
“The plaintiffs were all taxpayers in NC, but we had no actual say about how those payments taken from us were to be spent, even if the spending violated the Constitution of the state.” ~Michael Munger
-
•
Argentina Agonistes: The Separation of Money and State
“The Argentine peso has lost 93 percent of its value in just the past 4 years. Anyone who could carry out transactions using dollars always did so; holding pesos was little different from simply setting your wealth on fire.” ~Michael Munger
-
•
Taxation as Social Justice
“The goal is not to raise revenue so we can support the poor; instead, the US is pursuing the simpler goal of eliminating private concentrations of wealth.” ~Michael Munger
-
•
State Development Incentives: Taxes, Investment, and Tullock Auctions
“State ‘incentive’ packages do more than pay companies the difference in costs. Politicians have every reason to pay up to, and beyond, the entire economic benefit to the state, because their calculus counts costs as benefits.” ~ Michael Munger
-
•
State Development Incentives: The Only Solution is Not to Play
“The incentives of politicians and the goals of citizens can diverge, and nowhere is that divergence more obvious than in the case of targeted, private benefits to specific corporations paid for at public expense.” ~ Michael Munger
-
•
The Ludwig von Mises: Catallactic Converter
” An emergent system of division of labor based on impersonal commercial exchange, then, can substitute for benevolence.” ~ Michael Munger
-
•
The New (Old) Threat of “Runaway Bureaucracy”
“The notion of ‘independent’ agencies was a holdover conceit of the Progressive era—the FTC was founded in 1914—based on the idea that citizens were faced with large, concentrated forces they had no hope of dealing with, but which could be managed with the seraphic wisdom of benevolent experts.” ~ Michael Munger
-
•
Economics is Not Easy
” Since everyone looks to prices for accurate information about relative scarcity, having prices that are being inflated artificially is misleading, and results in multiple different economic actors all trying to expand at once.” ~ Michael Munger
-
•
Adam Smith Can Save Your Golf Game
“Golf is a great way to learn to do things for yourself. Even when you’re playing with other people, you’re playing only against yourself, keeping your own score and holding yourself accountable to a set of rules that it is your own responsibility to internalize.” ~ Michael Munger
-
•
Adam Smith Discovered (and Solved!) the Trolley Problem
“Smith makes a claim about human sentiments that seems monstrous, but which is perfectly plausible: we focus mostly on ourselves.” ~ Michael Munger