A worldwide depression struck countries with market economies at the end of the 1920s. Although the Great Depression was relatively mild in some countries, it was severe in others, particularly in the United States, where, at its nadir in 1933, 25 percent of all workers and 37 percent of all nonfarm workers were completely out […]
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.
A private pension plan is an organized program to provide retirement income for a firm’s workers. Some 56.7 percent of full-time, full-year wage and salary workers in the United States participate in employment-based pension plans (EBRI Issue Brief, October 2003). Private trusteed pension plans receive special tax treatment and are subject to eligibility, coverage, and […]
“Competitiveness,” particularly with reference to an entire economy, is hard to define. Indeed, competitiveness, like love or democracy, actually has several meanings. And the question “Is America competitive?” has at least three interpretations: How well is the United States performing compared to other countries? How well has America performed in international trade? Are we doing […]
K-12 In the 1980s, economists puzzled by a decline in the growth of U.S. productivity realized that American schools had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. After rising every year for fifty years, student scores on a variety of achievement tests dropped sharply in 1967. They continued to decline through 1980. The decline was […]
The U.S. welfare system would be an unlikely model for anyone designing a welfare system from scratch. The dozens of programs that make up the “system” have different (sometimes competing) goals, inconsistent rules, and over-lapping groups of beneficiaries. Responsibility for administering the various programs is spread throughout the executive branch of the federal government and […]
Governments impose a variety of taxes. The analysis of taxes, therefore, requires multiple entries, including marginal tax rates, corporate taxation, and capital gains taxes.
These entries are on various aspects of the labor market and include discrimination, the gender gap, immigration, job safety, and wages and working conditions.
These entries deal with various issues in law and economics such as antitrust, liability, and intellectual property.
These entries are about real markets and how they work and include advertising, brand names, competition, entrepreneurship, and the free market.
In 2009, Elinor Ostrom, along with oliver e. williamson, was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. Ostrom, the only woman to ever win the prize, received it “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.” She demonstrated “how local property can be successfully managed by local commons without any regulation by central authorities […]
Born in England, John Locke was a persistent champion of natural rights—the idea that each person owns himself and should have certain liberties that cannot be expropriated by the state or anyone else. When someone labors for a productive end, the results become that person’s property, reasoned Locke. Locke also believed that governments should not […]