Some articles and books that have caught my attention recently:

1. John Baden makes a "better to feel good than to do good" argument about ethanol; he includes data from and a link to a Consumer Reports study finding that ethanol lowers gas mileage.

2. The NYT had an article about crime's harmful effect on Latin American economies. Repeat after Doug North--institutions matter.

3. There's a new issue of the Independent Review. Among other articles, Robert Whaples takes on Jared Diamond and Dan Klein examines Donald Shoup's "The High Cost of Free Parking."

4. From the WaPo: "For Math Students, Self-Esteem Might Not Equal High Scores." Unfortunately, much of the educrat establishment thinks it's more important for kids to feel good than to be numerate.

5. The Journal of Public Economics has an article about the effect of the estate (aka death) tax on family businesses.

6. Gary Libecap has a new NBER WP on property rights in the West. (Something I learned on my recent trip to AZ: It takes about 80 acres of grazing land per head of cattle.)

7. Bill Shughart and Taylor Stevenson examine the political economy of the tobacco settlement.

8. Eric Hanushek takes on adequate school funding litigation in "Courting Failure: How School Finance Lawsuits Exploit Judges' Good Intentions and Harm our Children."

9. Wilson previously posted on Steve Chapman's minimum wage article. It reminded me of my test for differentiating thoughtful redistributionists (probably an oxymoron) from political demagogues: the latter favor the minimum wage while the former favor the EITC.