Debt and Profit

Why do we keep doing things we know we shouldn’t? And is that really a failure of will? Author Meghan O’Gieblyn spent years trying to answer that question, first in response to her struggle with alcoholism and her loss of faith, and then by means of Simone Weil, William James, and Iris Murdoch, who argue… MORE

Reading Dean Ball’s recent essay “On the Loose” has me thinking about an old idea in a new light. Ball asks us to imagine a world containing “self-sovereign” AI agents. These are not simply chatbots we rent by the month. They are agents capable of operating independently, acquiring the computer they need to keep running,… MORE

Before you give the government new powers, try the Munger Test: cross out “government” and insert the name of the politician you trust least. Then see if you still like the idea. In his 52nd EconTalk appearance, Mike Munger talks with host Russ Roberts about public choice, politics without romance, and why treating government like… MORE

When a business exploits political interventionism for profit, several terms may be used to describe the undertaking. If one is looking at the exploitation from the perspective of political science—and perceives the behavior as a special-interest group corrupting impartial government—then one might choose the terms regulatory capture or cronyism. But if one is looking at… MORE

Reveries of a Solitary Walker I confess that I am an atypical tourist. When last in Paris, I eschewed the charred Notre Dame cathedral and the urban oasis of the Luxembourg Gardens. Instead, I headed to the Citéco1 Museum of the Economy. The museum is quite well done, with foundational exhibits on exchange, individual autarky,… MORE

Nobel laureate Ronald H. Coase (1910-2013) was recorded in 2001 in an extended video now available to the public. Coase’s articles, “The Problem of Social Cost” and “The Nature of the Firm” are among the most important and most often cited works in the whole of economic literature. Coase recounts how he tried to encourage… MORE

Svetozar “Steve” Pejovich, one of the most dynamic and insightful theorists writing on property rights, reflects on his experience in economics. With characteristic sagacity and humor, he demonstrates the power that empirical cases can bring to bear on theoretical problems. Born in Belgrade, Pejovich is Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M University, where he taught for… MORE

A five-part short video series on the life and contemporary relevance of Adam Smith. This video series, produced by AdamSmithWorks, can be watch as a full 38-minute feature, or in five thematic, classroom-friendly chunks. To access all, click here.   Below are some discussion prompts related to this video:   Part 1: The Invisible Hand… MORE

  Douglass North shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in economics with robert fogel “for having renewed research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change.” North earned his Ph.D. in economics at the University of California at Berkeley, but by his own admission learned how… MORE

  Franco Modigliani, an American born in Italy, received the 1985 Nobel Prize on the basis of two contributions. The first is “his analysis of the behavior of household savers.” In the early 1950s Modigliani, trying to improve on Keynes’s consumption function, which related consumption spending to income, introduced his “life cycle” model of consumption.… MORE

In 1990, U.S. economists Merton H. Miller, Harry Markowitz, and William F. Sharpe shared the Nobel Prize “for their pioneering work in the theory of financial economics.” Miller’s contribution was the Modigliani-Miller theorem, which he developed with Franco Modigliani while both were professors at Carnegie Institute of Technology. (Modigliani had earned the prize in 1985… MORE