Tax on Sex and other links for the Weekend

As regular readers know, I often advocate specific taxes on goods with negative externalities or 'unintended consequences' such as: food tax, petrol tax, alcohol tax and parking tax.

This is a humorous piece from Freakonomics on a suggestion for a Tax on Sex

+ It has been observed that Democrats are generally in favor of taxation and Republicans are generally opposed to unnecessary sexual activity; and whereby:

+ The unintended costs of sexual activity are unacceptably high, particularly in the political arena (c.f. Messrs. Clinton, Foley, Craig, Edwards, and most recently one Mr. Levi Johnston, to name just a fraction of the available examples); and whereby:

(I think some of the comments were taking it a bit too seriously!

House prices in the UK are falling at the fastest rate since the Great Depression. There is a powerful momentum for falling house prices. Predicting house prices for 2009 is difficult, but, I think in the short term, they will keep falling - House price forecast 2009. The US by contrast may at last be beginning to see a moderation in house price falls.

The start of the academic year has seen an increase in readers questions. I often get asked about the Difference between Economics and Business Studies.