Government Policy
Book Review
Book Review of Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events.1 by Robert J. Shiller. And if you wish to adorn, borrow the metaphor from something better in the same genus, if to denigrate, from something worse. —Aristotle, Rhetoric III, 1404b It is an odd experience to be reading Robert J. Shiller’s .. MORE
Article
As of September 2019, less than 25 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, according to a Gallup poll.1 Before one jumps to the conclusion that this low approval rating is due to the current political situation and controversies, let me also share that this is roughly identical to the average rating .. MORE
Article, Book Review
Review of The Progressive Environmental Prometheans: Left-wing Heralds of a “Good Anthropocene.” by William B. Meyer1 Coming out of left field for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in 2020, the Michael Moore-backed documentary Planet of the Humans (henceforth Planet) indicted wind, solar, and biomass-generated electricity as mining intensive and carbon fuel-dependent (whether it be .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Politics and Economics
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Politics and Economics
College Economics Topics
Monetary Policy
Energy, Environment, Resources
econtalk-extra
We’ve all been super excited waiting for the release of EconTalk host Russ Roberts’ new book, Wild Problems. It’s now out, and both I and Russ hope you all choose to read it! (How else will you catch the chapter on Bill Bellichick?!?!?) This episode is icing on the cake, as Russ brings back Mike .. MORE
econtalk-extra
Milton Friedman may be of the most recognizable economists across our Econlib family, and especially so here at EconTalk. Friedman was a teacher of our beloved host Russ Roberts (as well as one of his first podcast interviewees), a Nobel laureate, a popular political lightning rod, and a best-selling author. When historian Jennifer Burns undertook .. MORE
Politics and Economics
The media is full of analyses as to why Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the recent election. At various times, I’ve mentioned factors like voter frustration over high inflation, illegal immigration, and woke excesses on college campuses. The more I think about the election, however, the less confidence I have in any single explanation. .. MORE
Uncategorized
I enjoy reading intellectual biographies – books dedicated to exploring how a particular person’s thinking evolved and developed through their lifetime. This, too, applies to intellectual autobiographies, where thinkers describe their own journey about how they came to believe what they believe. Of course, all such accounts should be taken with a pinch of salt. .. MORE
Explore the lasting legacies and
continued relevance of our classic titles.
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
A NEW edition of this translation of the popular treatise of M. Say having been called for, the five previous American editions being entirely out of print, the editor has endeavoured to render the work more deserving of the favour it has received, by subjecting every part of it to a careful revision. As the .. MORE
Henry Hazlitt’s 1946 book, Economics in One Lesson,1 remains relevant for readers to this day. In print since its publication, the book has sold more than a million copies, has been translated into 10 languages, and in 2019 became inspiration for a new book, Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well and Why .. MORE
A journalist is someone who knows all the facts of a story and none of the truth. That melancholy reflection is prompted by the twentieth anniversary of Enron’s historic collapse into bankruptcy: December 2, 2001. In its day, Enron’s bankruptcy was the largest in U.S. history, and, given Enron’s enormous prestige (voted “most innovative” of .. MORE
VIDEO
On April 10, 2013, Liberty Fund and Butler University sponsored a symposium, “Capitalism, Government, and the Good Society.” The evening began with solo presentations by the three participants–Michael Munger of Duke University, Robert Skidelsky of the University of Warwick, and Richard Epstein of New York University. (Travel complications forced the fourth invited participant, James Galbraith .. 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.
The U.S. federal budget deficit is probably the world’s most cited economic statistic. In recent years U.S. debt has risen at what is widely believed to be an alarming rate and has almost tripled since 1981. [Editor’s note: this article was written in 1993. Since then the debt held by the public rose even further .. MORE
Most economic theory ignores or underplays the contributions of technological progress. Mostly relegated to the realm of “exogenous factors” unaffected by economic policy, innovation enters the accounts chiefly as an effect of capital formation—the accumulation of buildings and equipment. Yet the most careful studies of the sources of productivity growth—by such economists as Lord Peter .. MORE
As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, .. MORE
-Arthur Seldon
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-Frederic Bastiat Full Quote >>