Introduction Chattel slavery involves the ownership by one person of another. This entry focusses on the operation of that labor system in the United States. Although chattel slavery dates back to the dawn of civilization, in the area that became the United States it emerged after the importation of Africans to the Virginia colony in […]
The Library of Economics and Liberty carries the popular Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, edited by David R. Henderson.
This highly acclaimed economics encyclopedia was first published in 1993 under the title The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics. It features easy-to-read articles by over 150 top economists, including Nobel Prize winners, over 80 biographies of famous economists, and many tables and charts illustrating economics in action. With David R. Henderson’s permission and encouragement, the Econlib edition of this work includes links, additions, and corrections.
Government intervention in food and fiber commodity markets began long ago. The classic case of farm subsidy through trade barriers is the English Corn Laws, which for centuries regulated the import and export of grain in Great Britain and Ireland. They were repealed in 1846. Modern agricultural subsidy programs in the United States began with […]
The efficient markets theory (EMT) of financial economics states that the price of an asset reflects all relevant information that is available about the intrinsic value of the asset. Although the EMT applies to all types of financial securities, discussions of the theory usually focus on one kind of security, namely, shares of common stock […]
A patent is the government grant of monopoly on an invention for a limited amount of time. Patents in the United States are granted for seventeen years from the date the patent is issued or for 20 years from the date of filing. Other countries grant patents for similar time periods. Italy and Mexico grant […]
What Is the Money Supply? The U.S. money supply comprises currency—dollar bills and coins issued by the Federal Reserve System and the U.S. Treasury—and various kinds of deposits held by the public at commercial banks and other depository institutions such as thrifts and credit unions. On June 30, 2004, the money supply, measured as the […]
As the category\'s name suggests, entries in this category are on important historical developments, two of the main ones being the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression.
With the decline in transportation costs, especially across oceans, and the recent increase in trade barriers, topics in international trade has become even more important.
Sometimes defined as the theory of the economy as a whole, macroeconomics includes issues such as economic growth, fiscal policy, monetary policy, national income accounts, and unemployment.
With extensive government regulation of many industries, there are many entries on aspects of that regulation, in industries ranging from agriculture, airlines, and energy tp trucking and pharmaceuticals.
In 2018, U.S. economist Paul M. Romer was co-recipient, along with William D. Nordhaus, of the Nobel Prize in Economic Science for “integrating technological innovations into long-run macroeconomic analysis.” Romer developed “endogenous growth theory.” Before his work in the 1980s and early 1990s, the dominant economic model of economic growth was one that MIT economist […]
Robert Fogel was corecipient (with Douglass C. North) of the 1993 Nobel Prize in economics “for having renewed research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change.” Fogel earned his master’s degree in economics at Columbia University in 1960, learning economics from george stigler […]