Steven Pressman (economist) - Other Contributions

Other Contributions

Pressman has written on financial frauds and their causes, including articles on specific frauds such as Charles Ponzi, Martin Frankel, and Health South. He has argued that naive optimism, a human character trait, is one reason that financial frauds are so prevalent. Another reason is herd behavior. Yet another reason is the lack of adequate government controls and insufficient checks and balances on firms and on individuals working for firms. Finally, human laziness comes into play- the failure of people to do the simple homework necessary to identify likely fraudulent activity.

Pressman has also written on economic methodology, arguing that the voting paradox cannot be resolved by claiming that voting is like clapping or applauding for a candidate. Strong empirical evidence that people engage in strategic voting, and important differences between voting and applause, make this resolution of the voting paradox inadequate.

Finally, Pressman has argued that Robert Nozick's position on the justice of government redistribution programs, which is put into concrete terms with his famous Wilt Chamberlain example, is badly flawed for four reasons- it ignores actual history, yet purports to be a historical theory of justice, it ignores empirical evidence on justice, it ignores the social nature of production and it ignores the future.