By Amy Willis

Have you ever been on a roll- like a Steph Curry at Madison Square Garden roll? If so, you may have experienced the "hot hand." Or maybe you played roulette at a casino, and you just knew which color would come up next. Are those "rolls" the same? Are they even real? In this episode, host Russ Roberts welcomes B...

By Scott Sumner

Between March and July 1933, FDR's policy of devaluing the dollar pushed industrial production up by an incredible 57% in just 4 months. Then FDR's National Recovery Administration instituted a policy of mandating sharply higher wages. Hourly wage rates rose by roughly 20% in just two months. This immediately ended the...

By David R. Henderson

The Liberty Classic title Economics Works is a double entendre. One meaning refers to many of the more important articles by Armen Alchian, such as those contained in Economic Forces at Work: Selected Works by Armen A. Alchian.1 The other meaning is that economics works: economics explains much of the world. The secon...

By Friedrich A. Hayek

What is the problem we wish to solve when we try to construct a rational economic order? On certain familiar assumptions the answer is simple enough. If we possess all the relevant information, if we can start out from a given system of preferences, and if we command complete knowledge of available means, the proble...

Doug Lemov of Uncommon School and co-author of Reading Reconsidered talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about reading. Lemov makes the case for the educational importance of critical reading of challenging books and texts. Along the way, he gives listeners some ideas of how to read themselves and gives parents some i...

By Daniel A. Sumner

Government intervention in food and fiber commodity markets began long ago. The classic case of farm subsidy through trade barriers is the English Corn Laws, which for centuries regulated the import and export of grain in Great Britain and Ireland. They were repealed in 1846. Modern agricultural subsidy programs in the...

By Jayme Lemke

There have already been an extraordinary number of remembrances, celebrations, and criticisms written of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life and work in the days since her passing. I’m grateful for her contributions to advancing gender equality in law, but I have no assessment of her overall judicial legacy to add to the ou...

Obstetrician gynecologist Amy Tuteur and author of Push Back, talks about the book with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Tuteur argues that natural parenting--the encouragement to women to give birth without epidurals or caesarians and to breastfeed--is bad for women's health and has little or no benefit for their children.

By Hugh Rockoff

Governments have been trying to set maximum or minimum prices since ancient times. The Old Testament prohibited interest on loans to fellow Israelites; medieval governments fixed the maximum price of bread; and in recent years, governments in the United States have fixed the price of gasoline, the rent on apartments in...

Introduction The Council for Economic Education (CEE) has compiled a list of the 51 key economics concepts common to all U.S. State requirements for high school classes in economics. The resources arranged here supplement these recommended CEE topics. These free resources are appropriate for teachers of high school...

By Arnold Kling

I have a complaint about America today, and it is simple: we don't love business enough. —Tyler Cowen, Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero,1 page 6 Tyler Cowen's book, Big Business, is subtitled A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero, but it could be described as a complaint letter directed...

By Bryan Caplan

A while back, I ran the following set of Twitter polls on collective guilt.  Here's what people think at the most abstract level. https://twitter.com/bryan_caplan/status/1297992580014182402 Overall, I was surprised by how few people said, "Never."  I expected more like 70-80%, especially when phrased so baldly....

1928-2015

  John Nash, john harsanyi, and reinhard selten shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in economics “for their pioneering analysis of equilibria in the theory of non-cooperative games.” In other words, Nash received the Nobel prize for his work in game theory. Except for one course in economics th...

By Arnold Kling

We are unique, standing apart from traditional universities and other ways of learning. We believe there is a better way, and refuse to settle for the status quo. —Stephen M. Kosslyn and Ben Nelson (editors) Building the Intentional University: Minerva and the Future of Higher Education, page 3891 Faculty and a...