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I’m sure DOGE will have a long history as the textbook definition of overpromising and underdelivering. There were a lot of reasons to be skeptical of their chances to meet their goals. But I just want to focus on simple realities DOGE didn’t – and couldn’t – alter. In 2024, federal spending was $6.8 trillion. .. MORE
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Economics and Culture
Clickbait describes a phenomenon where a headline is given a deliberately provocative title to try to get users to engage with some kind of online content. We may bemoan the phenomenon, but it persists because it’s effective. The most effective form of clickbait is known as rage bait. As the name suggests, rage bait is .. MORE
Adam Smith
From June 1 through June 13, I was in Park City, Utah participating in the Law Institute for Economics Professors run by the Law & Economics Center at Scalia Law School. It was a two-week crash course in American law and I will be sharing some insights over future posts (as an aside, if you .. MORE
Economic Methods
The human brain seems wired to notice patterns. This presumably has some evolutionary advantages, but this attribute can lead us astray in a world that is overloaded with data. I’ll start with a personal anecdote, and then show the implications for data analysis. Back on June 18th, I was traveling through the west side of .. MORE
Economic Methods
When I was in high school (approximately 730 years ago, or so it feels these days) I first learned basic trigonometry. A common type of problem in homework and tests involved situations where you had to find the length of one side of a triangle based on other values provided. For example, a problem might .. MORE
Central Planning
In the Summer issue of Regulation, I suggest that the growing popularity of industrial policy (also called “industrial strategy”) all over the world is a return to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the Finance Minister of Louis XIV in the 17th century. Industrial policy is not just an assemblage of political meddling acts—otherwise it would be everywhere in .. MORE
Microeconomics
On June 17, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tweeted: Recent reporting projects that stablecoins could grow into a $3.7 trillion market by the end of the decade. That scenario becomes more likely with passage of the GENIUS Act. A thriving stablecoin ecosystem will drive demand from the private sector for US Treasuries, which back stablecoins. This .. MORE
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Bloggers David Henderson, Alberto Mingardi, Scott Sumner, Pierre Lemieux, Kevin Corcoran, and guests write on topical economics of interest to them, illuminating subjects from politics and finance, to recent films and cultural observations, to history and literature.
Browse our archive of posts by author last nameEconomic Growth
I will be traveling for the next 19 days and so will be posting less frequently. Cincinnati’s Beer-Loving Germans Endured Anti-Immigrant and Anti-Alcohol Resistance by Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Reason, August/September, 2025. Excerpts: Cincinnati’s population ballooned throughout the 19th century, from 2,540 residents in 1810 to 115,435 in 1850, when it ranked as the sixth-largest .. MORE
Microeconomics
On June 17, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tweeted: Recent reporting projects that stablecoins could grow into a $3.7 trillion market by the end of the decade. That scenario becomes more likely with passage of the GENIUS Act. A thriving stablecoin ecosystem will drive demand from the private sector for US Treasuries, which back stablecoins. This .. MORE
EconTalk
In 2007, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote an interesting article advocating for what he called “defying the data.” The idea was fairly simple – say you have some theory explaining how the world works. A new study is published with data that can’t be accounted for with your theoretical framework. How should you respond? One response is .. MORE
The more research I have done on economic statistics, appreciating the practical challenges, the less certain I am that we know anything solid about today’s economy. –Diane Coyle, The Measure of Progress: Counting What Really Matters,1 (page 29) It would be nice to have definitive measures of economic progress. We would like to know whether .. MORE
Eugene Richter (1838-1906) was a member of a generation of classical liberals who died between the turn of the 19th century and the First World War. This generation included the French economist Gustave de Molinari (1819-1912), the English sociologist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), the English historian Lord Acton (1834-1902), the English radical individualist Auberon Herbert (1838-1906), .. MORE
This article has two lists: a list of popular economics books that I recommend reading; and a list of popular economics books that I recommend avoiding.1 What is a popular economics book? My first thought is that it is written without the mathematics and diagrams that economists use when teaching courses. My second thought is .. MORE
James Buchanan This is Part I of a two-part essay: The Past, Present, and Future of Public Choice: Part I The Past, Present, and Future of Public Choice: Part II Sixty years ago, the Public Choice Society was founded by Gordon Tullock and James Buchanan, nearly coincident with the publication of their jointly authored book, .. MORE
Power of the purse lies in Congress. As an aside any statutory limit Congress imposes on itself to restrain its spending habit eventually gets disregarded. Perhaps a Swiss-style constitutional debt brake might be in order?
Craig, July 8