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Article
Modeling Homer’s World An economic approach to Homer’s Odyssey1 is most definitely not about “what Homer really meant.” Instead, the economic approach views Homer through a lens that Homer himself probably never entertained, namely a series of relatively simple models about preferences and constraints. The economic approach is thus a distortion, but perhaps a useful .. MORE
Book Review, Liberty Classics
A Liberty Classics Book Review of What Should Economists Do? by James M. Buchanan.1 In November 1963, James Buchanan–newly president at the 33rd meeting of the Southern Economic Association–gave a stirring and surprising address titled “What Should Economists Do?”2 It was immediately published in the January 1964 issue of the Southern Economic Journal. The address .. MORE
Article
The ESG agenda (an acronym for Environmental, Social, and Governance) was born at the United Nations and has been amplified by investors and governments year after year, quickly gaining substance and influence. The balance between the drive for profit generation and the implementation of the ESG agenda has presented a tremendous challenge to both managers .. MORE
Economics of Education
Macroeconomics
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Free Markets
Regulation and Subsidies
Monetary Policy
Economic Growth
Economics and Culture
City Formation, Urban Issues
econtalk-podcast
[ANNUAL LISTENER SURVEY: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KYV5XPG. Vote for your 2024 favorites!] Under settler colonialism, you’re either a settler or indigenous and the sin of the founding of America, Australia, and Israel, for example, is not just a past injustice but a perpetuating mistake that explains the present. Listen as poet, author, and literary critic Adam Kirsch explains .. MORE
econtalk-extra
Many Americans are increasingly disillusioned with the ability of the free market to bring down skyrocketing housing prices. More Americans believe housing prices to be inflated by the greed of landlords and lobbyists, combined with the inability of policymakers to effectively regulate housing costs. Proof of this is that rent control has returned to the .. MORE
Economic Education
We’re bringing back price theory with our series on Price Theory problems with Professor Bryan Cutsinger. You can view the previous problem and Cutsinger’s solution here and here. This, our first problem for 2025, is ready for you to solve! Share your proposed solutions in the Comments. Professor Cutsinger will be present in the comments for the next .. MORE
Labor Mobility, Immigration, Outsourcing
Right wing anti-immigrant parties have recently achieved power in a number of European countries. But their immigration policies often don’t seem to match the campaign rhetoric. Here’s The Economist: In April 2023, six months after the hard-right government led by Giorgia Meloni took office, her agriculture minister, Francesco Lollobrigida, chided Italians to have more babies .. MORE
Explore the lasting legacies and
continued relevance of our classic titles.
My only reasons for writing a preface to a work so exhaustive, and in itself so lucid, as Professor Böhm-Bawerk’s Kapital und Kapitalzins, are that I think it may be advisable to put the problem with which it deals in a way more familiar to English readers, and to show that the various theories stated .. MORE
Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) first published Socialism in German, in 1922. The edition presented here is that published by Liberty Fund in 1981. It follows the text, with correction and enlargement of footnotes, of the Jonathan Cape, Ltd., edition published in London in 1969. The edition was based on the 1951 edition by Yale University .. MORE
A Book Review of Time For Socialism, by Thomas Piketty.1 Time For Socialism author Thomas Piketty boasts a doctorate in economics, publishes papers regularly in top economics journals, teaches economics at the Paris School of Economics, and was once on the economics faculty at M.I.T. Yet not only are the 333 pages of his 2021 .. MORE
Book Review of The Politics of Bad Options: Why the Eurozone’s Problems Have Been Hard to Resolve, by Stefanie Walter, Ari Ray, and Nils Redeker.1 The Euro and the Economic and Monetary Union were introduced to promote trade, deeper economic integration, and higher prosperity within the European Union. Largely this all came true. The Euro .. MORE
VIDEO
Anthony de Jasay, a regular columnist for Econlib, was one of the most original and independent thinkers on the relationship between the individual and the state. Through his published works, he challenged the reigning paradigms justifying modern democratic growth. His deeply challenging theoretical works include The State, an analysis that views the state as acting .. 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.
Regulation The federal government has been regulating prices and competition in interstate transportation ever since Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to oversee the railroad industry in 1887. Truckers were brought under the control of the ICC in 1935 after persistent lobbying by state regulators, the ICC itself, and especially, the railroads, which had .. MORE
The United States and all other modern industrial economies experience significant swings in economic activity. In some years, most industries are booming and unemployment is low; in other years, most industries are operating well below capacity and unemployment is high. Periods of economic prosperity are typically called expansions or booms; periods of economic decline are .. MORE
An entrepreneur is someone who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise. An entrepreneur is an agent of change. Entrepreneurship is the process of discovering new ways of combining resources. When the market value generated by this new combination of resources is greater than the market value these resources can generate .. MORE
-Anthony de Jasay
-Israel Kirzner Full Quote >>
-F. A. Hayek Full Quote >>