Before the Russian Revolution of 1917, “socialism” and “communism” were synonyms. Both referred to economic systems in which the government owns the means of production. The two terms diverged in meaning largely as a result of the political theory and practice of Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924). Like most contemporary socialists, Lenin believed that socialism could not […]
The Library of Economics and Liberty carries the popular Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, edited by David R. Henderson.
This highly acclaimed economics encyclopedia was first published in 1993 under the title The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics. It features easy-to-read articles by over 150 top economists, including Nobel Prize winners, over 80 biographies of famous economists, and many tables and charts illustrating economics in action. With David R. Henderson’s permission and encouragement, the Econlib edition of this work includes links, additions, and corrections.
Until the so-called Keynesian revolution of the late 1930s and 1940s, the two main parts of economic theory were typically labeled “monetary theory” and “price theory.” Today, the corresponding dichotomy is between “macroeconomics” and “microeconomics.” The motivating force for the change came from the macro side, with modern macroeconomics being far more explicit than old-fashioned […]
Bankruptcy is common in America today. Notwithstanding two decades of largely uninterrupted economic growth, the annual bankruptcy filing rate has quintupled, topping 1.5 million individuals annually. Recent years also have seen several of the largest and most expensive corporate bankruptcies in history. This confluence of skyrocketing personal bankruptcies in a period of prosperity, an increasingly […]
National defense is in many ways a public, or “collective,” good, which means two things. First, consumption of the good by one person does not reduce the amount available for others to consume. Thus, all people in a nation must “consume” the same amount of national defense (the defense policies implemented by the government), although […]
The Birth of the “Blues” In the 1930s and 1940s, a competitive market for health insurance developed in many places in the United States. Typically, premiums tended to reflect risks, and insurers aggressively monitored claims to keep costs down and prevent abuses. Following World War II, however, the market changed radically. Hospitals had created Blue […]
As the category\'s name suggests, entries in this category are on important historical developments, two of the main ones being the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression.
These deal with various issues in law and economics such as antitrust, liability, and intellectual property.
With the decline in transportation costs, especially across oceans, and with the worldwide decline in trade barriers, international trade has become even more important. Topics include free trade, protectionism, foreign exchange, and international capital flows.
This category ranges widely over various government policies, but mainly covers economy-wide policies on taxes, government spending, government debt and deficits, redistribution, welfare, and monetary policy.
Finn Kydland, along with edward prescott, received the 2004 Nobel Prize in economic science “for their contributions to dynamic macroeconomics: the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles.” Because Kyland and Prescott worked so closely, this biography deals with their work on time consistency and Prescott’s biography deals with […]
Eugene Fama shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with Robert Shiller and Lars Peter Hansen. The three received the prize for “for their empirical analysis of stock prices.” Fama has played a key role in the development of modern finance, with major contributions to a broad range of topics within the field, beginning […]