The Liberty Fund Prize for Advancing Economic Liberty Presented by The Neal and Jane Freeman Foundation

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

For the first time in human history, we’re not having enough children to keep the world’s population from falling. And fertility is collapsing fastest not in rich nations but in places like Colombia, Thailand, and Guatemala, upending decades of economic wisdom. Economist Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde tells EconTalk’s Russ Roberts that falling fertility has accelerated sharply over… MORE

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

“For centuries, philosophers and economists in the capitalist tradition have warned against what Enron brought to life in an almost surreal form.” My previous Econlib article, “Enron: The Perils of Interventionism,”1 described how capitalism’s most trenchant critics turned the rise and fall of this once iconic corporation into “Exhibit A” against laissez-faire. Other critics, though,… MORE

A Book Review of Time For Socialism, by Thomas Piketty.1 Time For Socialism author Thomas Piketty boasts a doctorate in economics, publishes papers regularly in top economics journals, teaches economics at the Paris School of Economics, and was once on the economics faculty at M.I.T. Yet not only are the 333 pages of his 2021… MORE

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

On April 10, 2013, Liberty Fund and Butler University sponsored a symposium, “Capitalism, Government, and the Good Society.” The evening began with solo presentations by the three participants–Michael Munger of Duke University, Robert Skidelsky of the University of Warwick, and Richard Epstein of New York University. (Travel complications forced the fourth invited participant, James Galbraith… MORE

Recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Milton Friedman (1912-2006) has long been recognized as one of our most important economic thinkers and a leader of the Chicago school of economics. He is the author of many books and articles in economics, including A Theory of the Consumption Function and A Monetary History… MORE

  Gustav Cassel, a Swedish economist, developed the theory of exchange rates known as purchasing power parity in a series of post-World War I memoranda for the League of Nations. The basic concept can be made clear with an example. If US$4 buys one bushel of wheat in the United States, and if 120 Japanese… MORE

  The American economist James Tobin received the 1981 Nobel Prize “for his analysis of financial markets and their relations to expenditure decisions, employment, production, and prices.” Many people regard Tobin as America’s most distinguished Keynesian economist. Tobin’s most important work was on financial markets. He developed theories to explain how financial markets affect people’s… MORE

  The British economist John Hicks is known for four contributions. The first is his introduction of the idea of the elasticity of substitution. While the concept is difficult to explain in a few words, Hicks used it to show, contrary to the marxist allegations, that labor-saving technical progress—the kind we generally have—does not necessarily… MORE