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Today, the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University), Philippe Aghion (London School of Economics), and Peter Howitt (Brown University) “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth.”1 This follows a recent trend for the Committee to award to economics focused on economic growth, following Acemoglou, Johnson, and Robinson in 2024 and Kremer, .. MORE
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Adam Smith
In his new book The Civilization of Commerce (Encounter Books, October 2026), American Institute for Economic Research president Samuel Gregg explores the requirements, benefits, and positive features of a commercial society, which isn’t merely trading and exchanging goods but a civilization of growth in knowledge, specialization, networks, and institutions that is built on tradition, virtue, .. MORE
Economic History
For millions of entrepreneurs, the greatest barrier to generating wealth is no longer market competition but the relentless expansion of regulations and administrative procedures. While governance is ostensibly designed to ensure order, modern bureaucracy has morphed into a formidable “invisible shackle.” Rather than functioning as a neutral tool of oversight, excessive red tape treats a .. MORE
Sam's Links
Sam Enright works on innovation policy at Progress Ireland, an independent policy think tank in Dublin, and runs a publication called The Fitzwilliam. Most relevant to us, on his personal blog, he writes a popular link roundup; what follows is an abridged version of his Links for August. Blogs and short links Notes from my .. MORE
Uncategorized
Senator Phil Gramm and Professor Donald Boudreaux have been named the inaugural recipients of The Liberty Fund Prize for Advancing Economic Liberty, presented by The Neal and Jane Freeman Foundation. Through decades of teaching, writing, and public discourse, both honorees have deepened the public’s understanding of how competitive markets sustain a free society. The prize .. MORE
Macroeconomics
This year, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, colloquially called the Nobel Prize in Economics, went to Robert E. Hall of Stanford University and Michael Woodford of Columbia University for their work in “microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilization.” Those five words do not adequately describe their contributions. Hall and .. MORE
Finance
An ordinary person can earn a paycheque, pay her taxes, cover living costs and mortgage payments, and perhaps even add to her savings — and at the end of the day she will still owe most of her mortgage. This is a normal state of affairs, and nobody finds it puzzling. Yet when a company .. MORE
Entrepreneurship
Adam Smith articulated the rhetoric of the Bourgeois Deal by highlighting fundamental differences among commercial, political, and martial societies. Everyone, he argued, is always practicing oratory on others and trying to persuade them to cooperate: “give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want.” Luke Froeb and his coauthors in .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Commenting on this post, commentor Warren Platts writes (emphasis added): You economists can debate amongst yourselves about how trade deficits don’t matter. But your debates are what don’t matter now. Now we need to just get this done, come hell or high water. Your job now, as an experienced economist, is to tell us how .. MORE
Labor Market
It’s easy to doomscroll these days. AI, it appears, is coming for our jobs. Even occupations that were previously considered an easy path to a middle-class lifestyle, like lawyer and radiologist, may be subject to the AI chopping block. Yet these stories, despite their flashy headlines, are missing nuance. They examine the seen (and likely) .. MORE
Who defines and enforces property rights? If you are the average person, an undergraduate student, or even a mainstream economics professor, that answer is easy: the government. Look it up! Municipal and county governments determine the deeds to your property and various usage rights including wetland setbacks and easements. State governments create regulations that affect .. MORE
IT GIVES me great satisfaction to see this book, handsomely printed by a distinguished publishing house, appear in its third revised edition. Two terminological remarks may be in order. First, I employ the term “liberal” in the sense attached to it everywhere in the nineteenth century and still today in the countries of continental Europe. .. MORE
This attitude… is based on the belief that “the difficulties and disorders of humankind can be overcome by some large-scale adjustment: it suffices to devise a new arrangement, a new system, and people will be released from their temporary prison into a realm of success.” —Alan Jacobs, How to Think: A Survival Guide for a .. MORE
John Stuart Mill was my companion for more than three years, while I was writing my dissertation on what I called his New Political Economy (1965, 1972). Every generation, every school of economists, has the ambition to rewrite economics. The case of Mill was a special one. Analytically speaking he was the last of the .. MORE
Great read. And you hit on the exact thing that will help people navigate these challenges: find where AI can complement you, not replace you. Do that, and you will be more productive and thus..
Jon Murphy, May 19