Government Intervention Is Unscientific
Sit in any time beyond the first month of a typical ECON 101 class and here’s what you’ll be taught: free markets work well, but only under conditions that seldom prevail in reality – a regrettable fact that requires the state to intervene to correct e …
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Gary Becker: A Birthday Appreciation
For Becker (and so many after him), economics wasn’t just about stock markets, exchange rates, and the money supply.
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There are Numbers, and There Is Reality
At the very least, some humility is in order. We could do worse than Yogi Berra recommended when he said, “If you ask me something I don’t know, I’m not going to answer.”
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The Most Important Concept Mises Taught Me
Key among the basic concepts of Austrian economics (a term that Mises rarely used; he preferred just “economics” or more broadly, “praxeology”) is the concept of methodological individualism. This has been the most important of Mises’ basic conce …
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The Soul of Economics Is the Market Process
The process of economic change is about how economic actors invest to alleviate the constraints they face by reducing transaction costs in order to grow richer.
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It’s a Disservice to Urge Young People To Become Entrepreneurs
The legend of the twenty-something business wunderkind is everywhere in pop culture. Here’s the problem. The data are in. It turns out that the whole thing is a gigantic myth.
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Free Competition Is Voluntary Cooperation
Unlike the competition in games where some lose what the victors win, and unlike war where even the winner may lose more than he gains, freely competitive economic behavior enables each participant t.o gain the greatest possible reward by voluntarily cooperating .
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Krugman’s Zombie Idea: We Owe It to Ourselves
Paul Krugman claims that the national debt doesn’t matter because “we owe it to ourselves.” This “zombie idea” is dead wrong.
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Use Economics to Lose 15 Pounds Before the Holidays
With a few rules the decision of what and when to eat moves to the slower, smarter part of our brains.
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Starbucks Too Has Surge Pricing
Even though you have money and you are ready, even eager, to pay, you have to wait your turn. That’s a form of surge pricing.
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We Thrive Thanks to Many Andrew Yangs, Not One
Entrepreneurs, it turns out, don’t need to understand entrepreneurship. The same creativity that led Yang to create value in our economy now leads him astray.
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How Salesmen Improve Our World
The salesman is the empathetic agent of change that helps us overcome our psychological reticence to part with our property in order to gain something that will genuinely improve our subjective well-being.
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