Introducing: The Naked Economist: Undressing the Issues of the Day.

Consider this:

Imagine that we operated our public golf courses like we operate our public roads: We would charge all taxpayers to build the course, regardless of how often they play golf—or even if they don’t play at all. Then we would charge nothing to play and all golfers could tee off whenever they showed up. Would it be a little too crowded on the first tee when 27 golfers tried to tee up their drivers at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning? You bet.

And yet that’s how we manage most of our roads. We finance them with primarily with general tax revenues, so those who drive far and often don’t pay any more than those who bike to work. Tollways excepted, we charge nothing to use our very expensive roads. And even on the tollways, it’s usually no more costly to travel at 8:30 a.m. on a weekday than it is at noon, even though moving some drivers out of the peak travel period would make nearly everyone better off.

Sure, most economists wouldn’t mingle golf and highways in the same scenario, but it’s exactly these kind of common sense approaches that make big issues accessible and move public policy. And, it’s exactly why I’m so enthusiastic about my latest venture: The Naked Economist, a Yahoo! Column.

The series appears monthly and uses basic economic analysis and related tools to “unpack” issues in the headlines (and perhaps some issues that should be in the headlines but aren’t). I hope to bring fresh thinking and an analytical bent to issues of the day—in part by pointing out where people with different ideological views will have reasonable disagreements.

View my current article and archives at Yahoo!