Economics

Who Is Really Serious About Monopolies? [Good Life series]

Raise the topic of monopolies, and the ensuing discussion will quickly highlight ideological blind-spots. A colleague with whom I’ve taught courses in business and capitalism sent to me, enthusiastically, this article by Paul Krugman, a Nobel-Prize-winning economist. Krugman attacks Amazon and calls for it to be cut down a few notches. Amazon, he says, has […]

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Blamestorming and “Deregulation caused the financial crisis” [Good Life series]

You’ve heard the claim: “Deregulation caused the crisis.” In the years leading up to 2008, the story goes, bad economists convinced bad politicians to deregulate the money/banking/finance sector of the economy, and bad capitalists then enjoyed an orgy of greed that caused the system to go haywire. Nobel-Prize-winners Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman have signed

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Martín Krause’s index of economic and political institutional quality

Martín Krause is Professor of Economics and the University of Buenos Aires and a specialist in law and economics and institutional economics. With Professor Krause’s permission, here is the 2015 edition of “INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY 2015” [pdf], which ranks 193 countries in three categories: Institutional Quality, Political Institutions, Market Institutions. For those interested in the performance

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Comparando el desempeño económico de América del Norte y América Latina [Spanish translation]

Por Stephen Hicks [This is a Spanish translation of “Comparing North and Latin American Economic Performance”, originally published in English at EveryJoe and in Portuguese at Libertarianismo.] Todos queremos que la gente logre vivir en forma adecuada, especialmente las personas pobres que están luchando por ello. Y si somos ambiciosos, queremos además que la gente pueda vivir

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Where are all those free-market economists who caused the financial crisis? [Good Life series]

A common meme about the financial crisis blames it on capitalism run amok and holds the rise of free-market fundamentalism among economists responsible for unleashing the greed. Academic economists, the argument runs, are largely free-marketers, and they convinced politicians to deregulate important swathes of the American economy, and the unbridled capitalists then engaged in a

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Robert Salvino on entrepreneurship and public policy — transcript of video interview

Interview conducted at Rockford University by Stephen Hicks and sponsored by the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship. Hicks: Hi. I’m Stephen Hicks. Our guest today is Professor Robert Salvino, who teaches Economics and Entrepreneurship at Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina. He spoke with us today on entrepreneurship and public policy. One of your initial

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