F.A. Hayek, free markets, Leonard Read, libertarianism, market mechanism, social media
Book Review, Kling's Corner
The first ‘networked era’ followed the introduction of the printing press to Europe in the late fifteenth century and lasted until the end of the eighteenth century. The second—our own time—dates from the 1970s, though I argue that the technological revolution we associate with Silicon Valley was more a consequence than a cause of a .. MORE
Featured Article
Introduction Most Americans think of Labor Day as part of a long weekend and the unofficial end of summer. It was originally meant, though, to recognize the contributions of labor unions. I recommend a third alternative: use Labor Day to honor laborers. To honor laborers, you would have to respect their right to make choices .. MORE
An Economist Looks at Europe
“It is not easy to know what to make of Joseph Schumpeter.” I have been immersing myself in Joseph A. Schumpeter‘s History of Economic Analysis. My reason for re-reading this classical work was to find the answer to an enigma: why did Schumpeter call the object of his ambitious work “a history of analysis”, when .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Statistics and Statistical Analysis
Cross-country Comparisons
Monetary Policy
Cost-benefit Analysis
Biography, Intellectual History
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Economic and Political Philosophy
Government Growth
Statistical theory and methods
econtalk-extra
In this episode of EconTalk, host Russ Roberts welcomes back philosopher and professor Leon Kass, to delve into the complex thoughts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It’s more than a discussion about Rousseau’s profound influence on Western philosophy. It is an opportunity to witness the art of deep reading as these two colleagues of Shalem College model .. MORE
econtalk-extra
Why do we help strangers? Is there a genetic basis for compassion? Or does evolutionary biology tell us a just-so story about why we care for others? These questions lie at the heart of this conversation between EconTalk Russ Roberts and Michael McCullough, who joined Russ to talk about his new book, The Kindness of Strangers. .. MORE
Cost-benefit Analysis
The second use is more resource-saving than the third. At my cottage in Canada, I have running water from a pump in the lake but not safe water. So in what we call the “bath hut” I have a bottle of clean water from which I pour a little into a Dixie cup when I .. MORE
Monetary Policy
Lately, President Trump has been pressuring Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell to cut interest rates. This has set off concerns about Federal Reserve independence. And reasonably so. Generally speaking, the more independent the central bank is from political pressure, the better the country’s economy performs on monetary measures like inflation (interested readers can find a .. MORE
Explore the lasting legacies and
continued relevance of our classic titles.
Money, for practically as long as it has existed, has been employed to realize two fundamentally different sorts of goals: production or plunder. In a market economy, private individuals routinely use monetary institutions in a cooperative way to achieve voluntary exchanges of goods and services. Political authorities, by contrast, use monetary institutions in a non-cooperative .. MORE
In March 1974 I got in touch with Professor Leland Yeager, who was then president-elect of the southern Economics Association, and told him that I wanted to organize a symposium on the economic thought of Ludwig von Mises for the November 1974 meeting of our association in Atlanta, Georgia. Mises had died in October 1973, .. MORE
[I]nstitutions should be formative… they should act as links between the personal and the social. What we need, then, is a recommitment to such an understanding of institutions. Our challenge is less to calm the forces that are pelting our society than to reinforce the structures that hold us together. That calls for a spirit .. MORE
A Book Review of The Decadent Society (How We Became the Victims of our Own Success), by Ross Douthat.1 New York Times columnist Ross Douthat brings us a breathless and demoralizing story of the decline of Western civilization. The book raises a few meaty points about the Zeitgeist, but it overextends its reach, attempting to .. MORE
VIDEO
Svetozar “Steve” Pejovich, one of the most dynamic and insightful theorists writing on property rights, reflects on his experience in economics. With characteristic sagacity and humor, he demonstrates the power that empirical cases can bring to bear on theoretical problems. Born in Belgrade, Pejovich is Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M University, where he taught for .. MORE
VIDEO
Nobel laureate Ronald H. Coase (1910-2013) was recorded in 2001 in an extended video now available to the public. Coase’s articles, “The Problem of Social Cost” and “The Nature of the Firm” are among the most important and most often cited works in the whole of economic literature. Coase recounts how he tried to encourage .. 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.
[An update of Occupational Licensing, by David S. Young.] Occupational licensing today directly affects more than one in five workers in the United States—up from one in 20 workers in the 1950s. This is nearly twice the fraction of workers belonging to a union and more than 15 times the fraction of workers receiving the .. MORE
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 .. MORE
The corporate income tax is the most poorly understood of all the major methods by which the U.S. government collects money. Most economists concluded long ago that it is among the least efficient and least defensible taxes. Although they have trouble agreeing on—much less measuring with any precision—who actually bears the burden of the corporate .. MORE
-Adam Smith
-James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock Full Quote >>
-Israel Kirzner Full Quote >>