Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
Way back in 2004 I wrote about how the lack of an intuitive sense of scale prevented many people from viewing the Lancet Iraqi Mortality survey with skepticism. The same lack of sense of scale shows up in other areas such as in this article (via Megan McArdle) about ending subsidies to the oil industry … Read more
Megan McArdle at Instapundit describes another case of Lancet’s preaching that probably deserves the Shannon approach: apparently it is a “crime” to “poach” third world health professionals. While there is much to be said for a sense of duty and a sense of loyalty to one’s home turf, most of us consider the importance of … Read more
Glenn links to a lengthy essay in The National Journal which calls into question the veracity of two studies. The studies in question were published in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, and they supposedly showed that civilian casualties had soared since the US led invasion. In fact, the studies claimed that civilian deaths … Read more
Way back October of 2004 I posted a critique of a study published in the Lancet that purported to show that: …about 100000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths. I … Read more
David Foster, in the comments to my previous post, links to this article. Actually, one of the factors that got me to thinking about the problem of bureaucratic failure about 10 years ago was an article in some British medical journal, probably either the Lancet or BMJ (I can’t remember which and if anyone knows … Read more