Featured Articles

Liberty Classics

Economics Works

The Liberty Classic title Economics Works is a double entendre. One meaning refers to many of the more important articles by Armen Alchian, such as those contained in Economic Forces at Work: Selected Works by Armen A. Alchian.1 The other meaning is that economics works: economics explains much of the world. The second meaning sums up .. MORE

Reflections from Europe

Two Leaning Towers

The two towers of the European and the American political structures are bending every which way, depending on where you look from. It is a fair bet, though, that the twain shall never meet. Many seasoned observers believe that while the European way of life is manifestly getting Americanised, which used to mean ideologically center-right .. MORE

Book Review, Kling's Corner

The Science of Liberty

In The Evolution of Everything: How Ideas Emerge,1 Matt Ridley claims for liberty what Karl Marx once claimed for socialism: the mantle of science. He argues that evolution pervades not only biology but also technology and culture, and that it brings progress. In contrast, those human institutions that rely on top-down authority can cause much .. MORE

Most Recent

Obituaries

Daniel Kahneman RIP

By David Henderson

Fiscal Policy

Higher Taxes or Lower Benefits?

By Scott Sumner

Business Economics

Most New Ideas Are Terrible

By Kevin Corcoran

Economics and Culture

This is a Documentary, Right?!?!?

By Walter Donway

International Trade

Customs Unions and Free Trade Zones

By Scott Sumner

Austrian Economics

Ludwig Lachmann Biography

By David Henderson

Economic and Political Philosophy

Simple Economic Ideas About Choice

By Pierre Lemieux

Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings

My Weekly Reading for March 24, 2024

By David Henderson

Labor Market

Why No Recession (so far)?

By Scott Sumner

EconTalk

All >

econtalk-podcast

What Does “Unbiased” Mean in the Digital World? (with Megan McArdle)

Listen as Megan McArdle and EconTalk’s Russ Roberts use Google’s new AI entrant Gemini as the starting point for a discussion about the future of our culture in the shadow of AI bias. They also discuss the tension between rules and discretion in Western society and why the ultimate answer to AI bias can’t be .. MORE

econtalk-podcast

Adam D’Angelo on Knowledge, Experimentation, and Quora

Adam D’Angelo, CEO of the question and answer website, Quora, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the history, evolution, and challenges of Quora. Along the way they discuss the aggregation of knowledge and the power of experiments for improving the day-to-day performance of the site.

EconLog

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International Trade

Customs Unions and Free Trade Zones

A free trade zone (such as NAFTA, now called USMCA) has free trade among its members and separate external tariffs. A customs union (such as the EU) has a common external tariff wall. Prior to the Trump administration, that distinction was not all that important, as NAFTA members had relatively low external tariffs. Now it’s .. MORE

Economics and Culture

This is a Documentary, Right?!?!?

If I hesitate to criticize the new Netflix hit, You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment, as bait-and-switch propaganda—exploitation of audience trust in “science”—it is only because…well, what’s new?  Aren’t most “science” documentaries riding some hobby horse?  Attacks on virtually all companies in the natural resources field?  Attacks on “big” anything—except, of course, government? .. MORE

LIBERTY CLASSICS SERIES

Explore the lasting legacies and
continued relevance of our classic titles.

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Book Titles

All Books >

The Theory of Money and Credit

By Ludwig Mises

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) first published The Theory of Money and Credit in German, in 1912. The edition presented here is that published by Liberty Fund in 1980, which was translated from the German by H. E. Batson originally in 1934, with additions in 1953. Only a few corrections of obvious typos were made for .. MORE

On Liberty

By John Stuart Mill

THE SUBJECT of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general .. MORE

Book Reviews and Suggested Readings

Is Inequality a Problem?

By Nils Karlson

Book Review of The Poor and the Plutocrats: From the Poorest of the Poor to the Richest of the Rich (Oxford University Press 2021) by Francis Teal.1 Is inequality a problem? Many people seem to think so, if we judge the public discussions in Europe and the United States over the last decade or so. .. MORE

Is State Education Justified? An Appreciation of E.G. West’s Education and the State

By Kevin Currie-Knight

A Liberty Classic Book Review of Education and the State: A Study in Political Economy, by E.G. West.1 As a society, we have become used to government involvement in education. We rarely subject such involvement to economic scrutiny or ask the historical question of whether its appearance was necessary. E.G. West’s book Education and the .. MORE

Conversations

VIDEO

A Conversation with Armen A. Alchian

Recognized as one of the most influential voices in the areas of market structure, the theory of the firm, law and economics, resource unemployment, and monetary theory and policy, in this 2001 interview, Armen Alchian (1914-2013) outlines the “UCLA tradition” of economics which he founded and explores the many unanticipated consequences of self-seeking individual behavior. .. MORE

VIDEO

A Conversation with James M. Buchanan, Parts I and II

Nobel laureate James M. Buchanan (1919-2013) was recorded in 2001 in an extended video now available to the public. Universally respected as one of the founders of the economics of public choice, he is the author of numerous books and hundreds of articles in the areas of public finance, public choice, constitutional economics, and economic .. MORE

Econlib Videos

Intellectual Portrait Series

Conversations with some of the most original thinkers of our time

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Guides

College Economics Topics

Supplementary materials for popular college textbooks used in courses in the Principles of Economics, Microeconomics, Price Theory, and Macroeconomics are suggested by topic.

Economist Biographies

From the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

Economic Systems

Perestroika

[Editor’s note: this article was written in 1992.] To the outside world, the Soviet Union seemed little different in 1984 from what it had been for at least a decade. Except for a few skeptics, almost everyone agreed that the Soviet Union was the world’s second-largest economy and, if not the most powerful military force .. MORE

Corporations and Financial Markets , Economic Regulation, Economics of Legal Issues

Innovation

“ Innovation”: creativity; novelty; the process of devising a new idea or thing, or improving an existing idea or thing. Although the word carries a positive connotation in American culture, innovation, like all human activities, has costs as well as benefits. These costs and benefits have preoccupied economists, political philosophers, and artists for centuries. Nature .. MORE

Economic History, Economic Regulation, Government Policy

Airline Deregulation

The 1978 Airline Deregulation Act partially shifted control over air travel from the political to the market sphere. The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), which had previously controlled entry, exit, and the pricing of airline services, as well as intercarrier agreements, mergers, and consumer issues, was phased out under the CAB Sunset Act and expired officially .. MORE

Quotes

We have never designed our economic system. We were not intelligent enough for that. We have tumbled into it and it has carried us to unforeseen heights and given rise to ambitions which may yet lead us to destroy it.

-F. A. Hayek

To say that any act of government is legitimate because that act is sanctioned by a majority or a plurality of the community’s members, or by a majority or plurality of their elected representatives in a legislature, or by their elected, appointed, or anointed designates in executive or judicial roles, is to elevate collective or ...

-James M. Buchanan Full Quote >>

To balance a large state or society, whether monarchical or republican, on general laws, is a work of so great difficulty, that no human genius, however comprehensive, is able, by the mere dint of reason and reflection, to effect it.

-David Hume Full Quote >>