David Schmidtz, E-ZPass, Harold Daggett, labor union, Longshoremen, Wealth of Nations
Article
Libertarian intellectuals and activists know that culture matters. If I had a hundred bucks for every time I’d heard someone chalk up poverty to a black box called “culture” or demand that we “change the culture” or complain that Hollywood or the universities or the media or women in general are culturally biased against markets .. MORE
Featured Article
Introduction “The price Google charges to its search-engine customers is zero, which is not exactly a monopoly price.” On April 15, 2015, the European Commission (EC), which is the European Union executive, accused Google of “abusing a dominant position… by systematically favouring its own comparison-shopping product in its general search results pages.”1 The EC announcement .. MORE
Reflections from Europe
Platinum is worth more than gold. Though the best should not act as the enemy of the good, it is a bad mistake to lose sight of the platinum once, if by great efforts, the gold has been gained. After watching for two years the tragic-comic Greek drama, the vicious downward spiral sucking a country .. MORE
Economic Growth
Biography, Intellectual History
Economic Growth
Economic Education
Microeconomics
History of Economic Thought
Business Economics
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
econtalk-podcast
Economist and author Don Boudreaux of George Mason University discusses the life and work of the economist James Buchanan with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Buchanan received the Nobel Prize in 1986 for his work creating and developing public choice–the field which applies the tools of economics to politicians and political behavior. After discussing the importance .. MORE
econtalk-podcast
How big a problem is misinformation for a democracy? How do we arrive at the truth? Listen as economist and author Arnold Kling talks with EconTalk’s Russ Roberts about how we should think about truth-seeking. The conversation also revisits Kling’s classic work, The Three Languages of Politics, and the relevance of its framework for the .. MORE
Economic Education
[Editor’s note: Welcome to the second of our new series on Price Theory problems with Professor Bryan Cutsinger. You can view the posts from last month’s problem here and here. Share your proposed solutions in the Comments. Professor Cutsinger will be present in the comments for the next two weeks, and we’ll again post his .. MORE
Adam Smith
In his book Living Together, David Schmidtz makes a simple but profound observation about one of the most quoted passages from Adam Smith‘s The Wealth of Nations. Smith says: It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We .. MORE
Explore the lasting legacies and
continued relevance of our classic titles.
Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) first published The Theory of Money and Credit in German, in 1912. The edition presented here is that published by Liberty Fund in 1980, which was translated from the German by H. E. Batson originally in 1934, with additions in 1953. Only a few corrections of obvious typos were made for .. MORE
The main purpose of the present volume is to consider and illustrate some questions of principle in the controversy on free trade and protection. The three chapters which constitute Part I state these questions and summarize the main conclusions. The succeeding Parts give illustrations and verifications drawn from the history of several industries,—sugar, iron and .. MORE
James Buchanan is not easy to categorize. Is he a libertarian? A classical liberal? A conservative? Or perhaps even a “liberal” in the modern American sense of “progressive” or “social democrat”? Is he an economist or a philosopher? It is paradoxical but not totally wrong to answer “all of the above,” so complex and rich .. MORE
Review of The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, by Zachary D. Carter.1 Why should someone write another biography of Keynes? Major biographies of John Maynard Keynes (not merely books on Keynes and Keynesianism, of which the supply is far larger) include the 1951 Life of John Maynard Keynes .. MORE
VIDEO
A professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago in the 1960s and a primary figure in Chicago School Economics and in the field of Law and Economics, Harold Demsetz has contributed original research on the theory of the firm, regulation in markets, industrial organization, antitrust policy, transaction costs, externalities, and .. MORE
VIDEO
Recognized as one of the most influential voices in the areas of market structure, the theory of the firm, law and economics, resource unemployment, and monetary theory and policy, in this 2001 interview, Armen Alchian (1914-2013) outlines the “UCLA tradition” of economics which he founded and explores the many unanticipated consequences of self-seeking individual behavior. .. MORE
Econlib Videos
Conversations with some of the most original thinkers of our time
The Reading Lists by Topic pages contain some suggested readings organized by topic, including materials available on Econlib. Brief reviews or descriptions are included for many items.
Supplementary materials for popular college textbooks used in courses in the Principles of Economics, Microeconomics, Price Theory, and Macroeconomics are suggested by topic.
These free resources are appropriate for teachers of high school and AP economics, social studies, and history classes. They are also appropriate for interested students, home schoolers, and newcomers to the topic of economics.
A modern government is not a single, simple thing. It consists of many institutions, agencies, and activities and includes many separate actors—legislators, administrators, judges, and various ordinary employees. These actors act somewhat independently, and even, at times, at cross-purposes. Because government is complex, no single measure suffices to capture its true “size.” Each of the .. MORE
A private pension plan is an organized program to provide retirement income for a firm’s workers. Some 56.7 percent of full-time, full-year wage and salary workers in the United States participate in employment-based pension plans (EBRI Issue Brief, October 2003). Private trusteed pension plans receive special tax treatment and are subject to eligibility, coverage, and .. MORE
The defining trait of urban areas is density: of people, activities, and structures. The defining trait of urban transportation is the ability to cope with this density while moving people and goods. Density creates challenges for urban transportation because of crowding and the expense of providing infrastructure in built-up areas. It also creates certain advantages .. MORE
-David Hume
-Ludwig von Mises Full Quote >>
-F. A. Hayek Full Quote >>