Article
Book Review, Kling's Corner
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 Huemer, Progressive Myths,1 p. 212 Michael Huemer believes that some important components of .. MORE
Book Review, Kling's Corner
Under a gold standard, government bonds are nearly free of inflation risk but not of default risk. Under a fiat standard, the reverse is true. ——White, Lawrence H. Better Money: Gold Fiat or Bitcoin? (pp. 214-215).1 In his new book, Lawrence H. White compares three possible monetary systems: a gold standard, a fiat money standard, .. MORE
Article
The assumption commonly prevails that effective healthcare provision, especially during public health disasters like pandemics, must come from top-down authorities. Yet, this assumption overlooks the reality that local communities actively and routinely orchestrate the bottom-up delivery of healthcare services. Communities can, and frequently do, provide endogenous responses to all sorts of disasters, including pandemics. Elinor .. MORE
Norms, Customs, and Emergent Order
Reading List
Political Economy
Economic Growth
Taxation
Family and Self-Help
Data and Evidence
Economic Education
Economic Education
econtalk-podcast
Why do we like sad music or that poignant feeling that comes from attending a funeral? Author Susan Cain talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about her book Bittersweet and the seductive and sometimes deeply satisfying power of melancholy.
econtalk-podcast
Losing weight should be simple: eat less, exercise more. But according to author and health journalist Julia Belluz, it’s complicated. Listen as Belluz talks with EconTalk’s Russ Roberts about her new book, Food Intelligence. Belluz argues that a calorie is pretty much a calorie whether it’s carbs or fat. Keeping calories under control is often .. MORE
Economic Growth
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released updated figures on household and individual income. The news is quite positive: Real median household income in 2024 was a record $83,730, reversing a downward trend that began in 2020 with the pandemic. Real median individual income also reached a new high at $45,140 in 2024.[1] Both of these .. MORE
Economic and Political Philosophy
Many libertarians and classical liberals consider the 19th century in the West as the most liberal epoch in history. We can certainly see stains, notably slavery and later Jim Crow, as well as colonialism (think about the control of trade from the colonies, which Adam Smith criticized in his 1776 Wealth of Nations). In many .. MORE
Explore the lasting legacies and
continued relevance of our classic titles.
I AM desirous of prefixing to the second edition of the following work a few explanations which may tend to prevent misapprehension of its purpose and conclusions.The expression “exhaustion of our coal mines,” states the subject in the briefest form, but is sure to convey erroneous notions to those who do not reflect upon the .. MORE
Though this book leans on political philosophy, economics, and history, it leans on each lightly enough to remain accessible to the educated general reader, for whom it is mainly intended. Its central theme—how state and society interact to disappoint and render each other miserable—may concern a rather wide public among both governors and governed. Most .. MORE
A Book Review of The Story of Work: A New History of Humankind, by Jan Lucassen.1 As the subtitle suggests, Jan Lucassen’s massive work of scholarship is ambitious in scope and scale. The entire sweep of human history and the whole of the planet are its canvas and the story it tells and the analysis .. MORE
A Book Review of Manufacturing Militarism: U.S. Government Propaganda in the War on Terror, by Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall.1 It’s been over 20 years since the 9/11 attacks. Ever since those horrible attacks, the United States government has been waging a “war on terror” both at home and abroad. The war on .. MORE
VIDEO
A professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago in the 1960s and a primary figure in Chicago School Economics and in the field of Law and Economics, Harold Demsetz has contributed original research on the theory of the firm, regulation in markets, industrial organization, antitrust policy, transaction costs, externalities, and .. MORE
VIDEO
Anthony de Jasay, a regular columnist for Econlib, was one of the most original and independent thinkers on the relationship between the individual and the state. Through his published works, he challenged the reigning paradigms justifying modern democratic growth. His deeply challenging theoretical works include The State, an analysis that views the state as acting .. MORE
Econlib Videos
Conversations with some of the most original thinkers of our time
The Reading Lists by Topic pages contain some suggested readings organized by topic, including materials available on Econlib. Brief reviews or descriptions are included for many items.
Supplementary materials for popular college textbooks used in courses in the Principles of Economics, Microeconomics, Price Theory, and Macroeconomics are suggested by topic.
These free resources are appropriate for teachers of high school and AP economics, social studies, and history classes. They are also appropriate for interested students, home schoolers, and newcomers to the topic of economics.
Introduction No area of tax policy has changed more over the past four decades than corporate income taxation. Since 1980, corporate tax rates have fallen as countries have vied for business investment in an increasingly global economy. More recently, however, lower corporate tax rates have triggered concerns about a “race to the bottom” and, in .. MORE
When it was all over, I once made a list of New Deal ventures begun during Hoover’s years as Secretary of Commerce and then as president. . . . The New Deal owed much to what he had begun.1 —FDR advisor Rexford G. Tugwell Many historians, most of the general public, and even many economists .. MORE
Social Security, or, to be precise, Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI), is the U.S. government program that pays benefits to workers after retirement, to spouses and children of deceased workers, and to workers who become disabled before they retire. In 2003, the program had 47 million recipients, of whom 32.6 million were retired .. MORE
-Elinor Ostrom
-Frederic Bastiat Full Quote >>
-Adam Smith Full Quote >>