The Invisible Shackle: How Bureaucracy Stifles the Economy and Constrains Our Freedom

Sure, you can use willpower or grit to break bad habits and build new ones. But maybe the key to success is simpler: change your situation. Psychologist Angela Duckworth explains to EconTalk’s Russ Roberts why the people and places around us shape our behavior more than we realize–and why we’re hard-wired to resist that idea.… MORE

Sam Enright works on innovation policy at Progress Ireland, an independent policy think tank in Dublin, and runs a publication called The Fitzwilliam. Most relevant to us, on his personal blog, he writes a popular link roundup; what follows is an abridged version of his Links for August. Blogs and short links Notes from my… MORE

What if you did everything right and discovered on your deathbed that you’ve wasted your life? Rabbi and author David Wolpe talks about Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” with EconTalk’s Russ Roberts. Weaving Rabbi Wolpe’s own brushes with mortality and his years at the bedsides of the dying into Tolstoy’s masterpiece, they talk about the lies we tell… 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

Bureaucracy has a reputation of being a ‘necessary evil’ in modern western society. We are quick to blame bureaucracy for long waits at the DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles], lengthy approval processes for building permits, and for the piles of paperwork at work. Bureaucracy is the source of mandatory workplace trainings and the reason for… MORE

The twentieth century witnessed the unparalleled expansion of government power over the lives and livelihoods of individuals. Much of this was the result of two devastating world wars and totalitarian ideologies that directly challenged individual liberty and the free institutions of the open society. Other forms of expansion in the provision of social welfare and… MORE

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

A five-part short video series on the life and contemporary relevance of Adam Smith. This video series, produced by AdamSmithWorks, can be watch as a full 38-minute feature, or in five thematic, classroom-friendly chunks. To access all, click here.   Below are some discussion prompts related to this video:   Part 1: The Invisible Hand… MORE

Gordon Tullock, along with his colleague James M. Buchanan, was a founder of the School of Public Choice. Among his contributions to public choice were his study of bureaucracy, his early insights on rent seeking, his study of political revolutions, his analysis of dictatorships, and his analysis of incentives and outcomes in foreign policy. Tullock… MORE

Anne O. Krueger Introduction As an American economist studying international trade and protectionism, Anne Krueger had her own method: she traveled to poorer countries to talk, not just to government officials, but also to businesspeople in those countries. She also often asked to see the businesses’ books, not just the books that they prepared for… MORE

  Harry Johnson, a Canadian, was one of the most active and prolific economists of all time. His main research was in the area of international trade, international finance, and monetary policy. One of Johnson’s early articles on international trade showed that a country with monopoly power in some good could impose a tariff and… MORE