Featured Articles

Book Review, Liberty Classics

Interpreting Social and Economic Evolution

By  Rosolino Candela

A Liberty Classics Book Review of Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution, by Ludwig von Mises. 1 How is social cooperation possible without command? The answer to this question requires that we have a conceptual framework (i.e. theory) to interpret social and economic evolution (i.e. history), hence the title of Ludwig .. MORE

Featured Article

The Relentless Subjectivity of Value

By  Max Borders

Jack Sprat could eat no fat, His wife could eat no lean. And so betwixt them both you see, They licked the platter clean. “At that time, in that context, from my perspective, his quarter was worth at least a dollar to me.” Time. Context. Perspective. All are aspects of the way we value something—or .. MORE

Book Review, Kling's Corner

Subjective Value and Government Intervention

By  Arnold Kling

Since the 1870s, economists have agreed that value is subjective, but, following Alfred Marshall, many argued that the cost side of the equation is determined by objective conditions. Marshall insisted that just as both blades of a scissors cut a piece of paper, so subjective value and objective costs determine price…But Marshall failed to appreciate .. MORE

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Tariffs

Diving into Tariffs at Liberty Fund Today

By G. Patrick Lynch

Tariffs

No Manufacturing Jolt from Tariffs

By Jon Murphy

Free Will and Determinism

Free Will Is Real (with Kevin Mitchell)

Reading List

Sam’s Links: Holiday Edition

By Sam Enright

Book Review

Exploring The Chile Project

By J.P. Bastos

Price Theory

EconLog Price Theory: Inflation and Healthcare

By Bryan Cutsinger

International Development and Third World Poverty

Colonialism, Slavery, and Foreign Aid (with William Easterly)

Economic Theory

Housing: Supply vs. Quantity

By David Hebert

Economic Theory

Increasing Housing Supply

By Kevin Corcoran

Regulation

Barriers to Affordable Housing

By Tyler Watts

EconTalk

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econtalk-podcast

Free Will Is Real (with Kevin Mitchell)

Are we truly characters with agency, or are we just playing out our programming in the great video game of life? Contrary to those in his field who claim that free will is an illusion, neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell insists that we’re agents who wield our decision-making mechanism for our own purposes. Listen as the author .. MORE

econtalk-podcast

Robert Sapolsky on Determinism, Free Will, and Responsibility

Your mother’s socio-economic status at the time of your birth. Whether your ancestors raised crops or led camels through the desert. The smell of the room you’re in when you’re making a decision–all of these things, says neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, combine to affect your behavior, as well as everything in between. And if you’re wondering .. MORE

EconLog

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Reading List

Sam’s Links: Holiday Edition

Sam 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 November.  Blogs and short links 1. Is Google search .. MORE

Economics of Crime

An Economic Argument for Mercy

Mercy has long been a hallmark of a just legal system.  Judges are often given considerable leeway in determining punishment for a crime (except in cases like mandatory minimums or “three-strike” legislation) for exactly this reason.  Extenuating circumstances can result in a lower punishment for some criminals than others who commit certain crimes, and so .. MORE

LIBERTY CLASSICS SERIES

Explore the lasting legacies and
continued relevance of our classic titles.

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Book Titles

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An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

By Adam Smith

Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was first published in 1776. This edition of Smith’s work is based on Edwin Cannan’s careful 1904 compilation (Methuen and Co., Ltd) of Smith’s fifth edition of the book (1789), the final edition in Smith’s lifetime. Cannan’s preface and introductory remarks .. MORE

Essai sur la Nature du Commerce in Général (Essay on the Nature of Trade in General)

By Richard Cantillon

Intrigue, murder, posthumous plagiarism, citations by Adam Smith, rediscovery by William Stanley Jevons a century later, and a stunning work on entrepreneurial risk, money, foreign exchange, and banking from the 1700s–what more could one ask for from an 18th century economist? Richard Cantillon offers fascination for historians and economists as much in death as he .. MORE

Book Reviews and Suggested Readings

Michael Easter on Excess, Moderation, and the Scarcity Brain

Slot machines, social media, and potato chips: we humans seem to find a lot of things hard to consume in moderation. Why does “enough” seem so much harder to say than “more?” Listen as Michael Easter discusses these questions and his book, The Scarcity Brain, with EconTalk’s Russ Roberts. Easter shares ways that our awareness .. MORE

Who’s Afraid of Artificial Intelligence?

By Joy Buchanan

For over a decade, Russ Roberts has been covering both sides of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) debate. A recent EconTalk episode is optimistically called “Why AI Is Good for Humans (with Reid Hoffman).”  Another booster episode was “Marc Andreessen on Why AI Will Save the World.” In the opposite corner: the infamous doomer Eliezer Yudkowsky .. MORE

Conversations

VIDEO

Profile in Liberty: Friedrich A. Hayek

The twentieth century witnessed the unparalleled expansion of government power over the lives and livelihoods of individuals. Much of this was the result of two devastating world wars and totalitarian ideologies that directly challenged individual liberty and the free institutions of the open society. Other forms of expansion in the provision of social welfare and .. MORE

VIDEO

A Conversation with Israel Kirzner

Israel Kirzner, Professor Emeritus at NYU, is among the foremost scholars in the continuing development of the Austrian school of economic theory. He has extended our understanding of the workings of a free society, illuminated the role of entrepreneurs in the process of economic discovery, and shed new light on the dynamics of market forces. .. MORE

Econlib Videos

Intellectual Portrait Series

Conversations with some of the most original thinkers of our time

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Guides

College Economics Topics

Supplementary materials for popular college textbooks used in courses in the Principles of Economics, Microeconomics, Price Theory, and Macroeconomics are suggested by topic.

Economist Biographies

From the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

Schools of Economic Thought

Austrian School of Economics

The Austrian school of economics was founded in 1871 with the publication of Carl Menger’s Principles of Economics. menger, along with william stanley jevons and leon walras, developed the marginalist revolution in economic analysis. Menger dedicated Principles of Economics to his German colleague William Roscher, the leading figure in the German historical school, which dominated economic .. MORE

Basic Concepts

Prisoners’ Dilemma

The prisoners’ dilemma is the best-known game of strategy in social science. It helps us understand what governs the balance between cooperation and competition in business, in politics, and in social settings. In the traditional version of the game, the police have arrested two suspects and are interrogating them in separate rooms. Each can either .. MORE

Government Policy, Schools of Economic Thought

Behavioral Economics

How Behavioral Economics Differs from Traditional Economics All of economics is meant to be about people’s behavior. So, what is behavioral economics, and how does it differ from the rest of economics? Economics traditionally conceptualizes a world populated by calculating, unemotional maximizers that have been dubbed Homo economicus. The standard economic framework ignores or rules .. MORE

Quotes

The market economy is the product of a long evolutionary process. It is the outcome of man’s endeavors to adjust his action in the best possible way to the given conditions of his environment that he cannot alter.

-Ludwig von Mises

Regard to our own private happiness and interest, too, appear upon many occasions very laudable principles of action.

-Adam Smith Full Quote >>

We are as little able to conceive what civilization will be, or can be, five hundred or even fifty years hence as medieval man, or even our grandparents, were able to foresee our own manner of life.

-F. A. Hayek