EconLog Price Theory: Veggies or Noodles?

If you want to change the world, how you spend your 80,000 working hours may be the most important decision you can make. Benjamin Todd, founder of 80,000 Hours, joins EconTalk’s Russ Roberts to dismantle the career advice you’ve been fed since childhood. “Follow your passion” turns out to be a trap. Chasing a big… MORE

Sam Enright 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 and Links for April. Blogs and short links 1. Rest… MORE

There’s a common trope among people who have collateralized debt that, until the debt is cleared, they never truly own their property. For example, the bank holds the mortgage, and if mortgage payments aren’t made, the bank can seize the house. The trope says that  the “pay to stay” nature of the loan means the… MORE

In recent years, fears of inflation and the possibility of recession have grabbed headlines, particularly as the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates to curb inflation. In a recent article published in The Washington Post, historian Meg Jacobs and economist Isabella Weber suggest an alternative way to fight inflation.1 Rather than fight inflation by raising… MORE

It was Don Lavoie, not Friedrich Hayek, who coined the term “knowledge problem” in his seminal 1985 National Economic Planning: What Is Left?1 (itself a more accessible and policy-focused distillation of Lavoie’s thesis, under Israel Kirzner, entitled Rivalry and Central Planning: The Socialist Calculation Debate Reconsidered). Lavoie reformulated and clarified the knowledge problem as developed… MORE

“Do people do things for us because those people are good, because they love us? Sometimes they do. Your family loves you, and your friends would sacrifice things for you. But for most of us, family and friends is a pretty small group…. Something other than love, and altruism, has to organize all the thousands… MORE

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

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

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

If any twentieth-century economist was a Renaissance man, it was Friedrich Hayek. He made fundamental contributions in political theory, psychology, and economics. In a field in which the relevance of ideas often is eclipsed by expansions on an initial theory, many of his contributions are so remarkable that people still read them more than fifty… MORE

Modern economists excel at identifying theoretical reasons why markets might fail. While these theories may temper uncritical views of the market, it is important to note that markets do, in fact, work incredibly well. Indeed, markets work so thoroughly and quietly that their success too often goes unnoticed. Consider that the number of different ways… MORE

  Ludwig von Mises was one of the last members of the original austrian school of economics. He earned his doctorate in law and economics from the University of Vienna in 1906. One of his best works, The Theory of Money and Credit, was published in 1912 and was used as a money and banking… MORE