By Tyler Cowen
Modeling Homer's World An economic approach to Homer's Odyssey1 is most definitely not about "what Homer really meant." Instead, the economic approach views Homer through a lens that Homer himself probably never entertained, namely a series of relatively simple mod...
By Arnold Kling
It is pretty clear that an economist, like a poet, uses metaphors. They are called 'models.' The market for apartments in New York, says the economist, is 'just like' a curve on a blackboard. No one has so far seen a literal demand curve floating in the sky above Ma...
By Alain Marciano
A Liberty Classics Book Review of What Should Economists Do? by James M. Buchanan.1 In November 1963, James Buchanan--newly president at the 33rd meeting of the Southern Economic Association--gave a stirring and surprising address titled "What Should Economis...
By Carlos Fernando Souto
The ESG agenda (an acronym for Environmental, Social, and Governance) was born at the United Nations and has been amplified by investors and governments year after year, quickly gaining substance and influence. The balance between the drive for profit generation and the...
By Alvin Rabushka
Economic Freedom in Hong Kong The Fraser Institute's 2024 Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) report,1 its most recent edition, ranks Hong Kong as the world's freest economy in 2022. Since the first report in 1995, Hong Kong has invariably ranked first, with a ra...
By Byron Carson
A Liberty Classic Book Review of Cost and Choice: An Inquiry in Economic Theory, by James M. Buchanan.1 In less than one hundred pages, James Buchanan excoriates economists—classical and modern—for their unrecognized confusions about cost. More than an in...
By Arnold Kling
So we have a way of telling which political activists actually care about society and which are merely trying to portray themselves as caring: The ones who actually care will exert significant effort to make sure that their beliefs are correct. —Michael Hue...
By Janet Bufton
A Book Review of Democracy for Busy People, by Kevin J. Elliott.1 Kevin J. Elliott's 2023 book, Democracy for Busy People, is for anyone interested in liberal democratic politics. The book is worthwhile for classical liberals in particular because it handles topi...
By Arnold Kling
My appointment at Washington University was in the sociology department. During the autumn of my fourth year, I ran into a social work faculty friend of mine in the hallway of my building... she mentioned in passing that the social work school had a job opening that...
By Richard B. McKenzie
In his 2017 Nobel lecture, University of Chicago Professor Richard Thaler focused on how his native discipline, economics, lost its analytical way when economists founded their theories on methodological sand, meaning a premise of not just human rationality, but perfect...
By Alberto Mingardi
A Book Review of Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law, by Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze.1 Liberties, Thomas Hobbes wrote, "depend on the silence of the law." Nowadays the law is very chatty. Here are three examples from the new book by Supreme Court Justice...
By Art Carden
Economics in One Lesson author Henry Hazlitt said that good ideas must be re-learned every generation. As I tell my economic history students, we're contending for the values of the Enlightenment—life, liberty, equality, and the resulting prosperity. Contrary to what ...
By Arnold Kling
Herbert Stein, an economist who served in the Nixon Administration, wrote a memoir in which he looked back on his experience. He wrote that two main lessons he had learned were: 1. Economists do not know very much. 2. Other people, including politicians who make...
By Gregory Robson
It is not trite to say that businesses are only as good or as bad as their members. Businesses are, after all, human endeavors, and their success or failure depends on the competence and good will of their members. Yet the assaults on hierarchical firms and market econo...
By Michael Munger
Book Review of What Went Wrong with Capitalism? by Ruchir Sharma.1 Capitalism has a "Pretty Pig" problem. The reference is to a state fair livestock contest, where there is a judging of the beauty of adult swine. There are only two entrants, because adult...
By David R. Henderson
A Book Review of The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society, by Joseph E. Stiglitz.1 Introduction Columbia University economics professor Joseph E. Stiglitz has recently published a book titled The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society...