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Book Review, Kling's Corner
When it comes to talent, we will try to teach you how to think past the bureaucracy. We focus on a very specific kind of talent in this book—namely, talent with a creative spark—and that is where the bureaucratic approach is most deadly. In referring to the creative spark, we mean people who generate new .. MORE
An Economist Looks at Europe, Article
Two years ago, Dennis Rasmussen published a book that he says “was an absolute joy to write” and indeed is a joy to read: The Infidel and the Professor. It is the biography of a “Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought”, as the subtitle explains. This deceptively anecdotal story of how David Hume and Adam Smith .. MORE
An Economist Looks at Europe
Donald Trump is no gentleman; his vulgar remarks on women, his slanderous aspersions on Mexican immigrants, his intolerant condemnation of the critical media, and his aggressive pronouncements on foreign affairs during the Presidential campaign and his early tenure in office all leave an unpleasant aftertaste. There may have been some softening via the Vice President .. MORE
Fiscal Policy
Cost-benefit Analysis
Free Markets
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Public Choice Theory
Foreign Policy
Labor Market
Economic Growth
Business Economics
Economics of Crime
econtalk-podcast
Journalist and author Sebastian Junger talks about his book, Freedom, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. The book and conversation are based on a 400-mile walk Junger took with buddies along railroad rights-of-way, evading police, railroad security, and other wanderers. Junger discusses the ever-present tension between the human desire to be free and the desire to .. MORE
econtalk-podcast
There’s often a gap between the textbook treatment of statistics and the cookbook treatment–how to cook up the numbers when you’re in the kitchen of the real world. Jeremy Weber of the University of Pittsburgh and the author of Statistics for Public Policy hopes his book can close that gap. He talks to EconTalk host .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
There are a wide range of arguments for what makes a state legitimate, or what confers authority on a state in such a way as to create a duty to obey. There is one class of argument I’ve always found unsatisfying, and recently while pondering it I realized why it always seemed to fall short .. MORE
Foreign Policy
You might think this article comes a little late since it’s being published after Memorial Day. But now that Memorial Day has come and gone, it’s worth thinking about what it represents and why the debate about Memorial Day is so crucial. “Debate,” you might say. “What debate?” Yes, there is a debate. On .. MORE
Explore the lasting legacies and
continued relevance of our classic titles.
The present volume includes all of the essays in which Fetter developed and presented his theory of distribution; the only important writings excluded are his two treatises: The Principles of Economics (New York: The Century Co., 1910) and Economic Principles (New York: The Century Co., 1915)…. [From the Preface by Murray N. Rothbard]
I AM desirous of prefixing to the second edition of the following work a few explanations which may tend to prevent misapprehension of its purpose and conclusions.The expression “exhaustion of our coal mines,” states the subject in the briefest form, but is sure to convey erroneous notions to those who do not reflect upon the .. MORE
A review of Land of Hope: An Invitation to the American Story by Wilfred McClay.1 American history isn’t what it used to be. Once it was common for a history textbook author to tell a good story. I remember as an eighth-grade student being horrified that my teacher was going to toss out a bunch .. MORE
A Book Review of Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made, by Vaclav Smil.1 Over the last two decades, Vaclav Smil has produced a series of outstanding scholarly works across a range of interconnected topics. The core interest in all cases is energy—its sources and uses—but this is embedded in a wider concern with .. MORE
VIDEO
A professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago in the 1960s and a primary figure in Chicago School Economics and in the field of Law and Economics, Harold Demsetz has contributed original research on the theory of the firm, regulation in markets, industrial organization, antitrust policy, transaction costs, externalities, and .. MORE
VIDEO
Svetozar “Steve” Pejovich, one of the most dynamic and insightful theorists writing on property rights, reflects on his experience in economics. With characteristic sagacity and humor, he demonstrates the power that empirical cases can bring to bear on theoretical problems. Born in Belgrade, Pejovich is Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M University, where he taught for .. 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.
How Behavioral Economics Differs from Traditional Economics All of economics is meant to be about people’s behavior. So, what is behavioral economics, and how does it differ from the rest of economics? Economics traditionally conceptualizes a world populated by calculating, unemotional maximizers that have been dubbed Homo economicus. The standard economic framework ignores or rules .. MORE
To economists, efficiency is a relationship between ends and means. When we call a situation inefficient, we are claiming that we could achieve the desired ends with less means, or that the means employed could produce more of the ends desired. “Less” and “more” in this context necessarily refer to less and more value. Thus, .. MORE
The gold standard was a commitment by participating countries to fix the prices of their domestic currencies in terms of a specified amount of gold. National money and other forms of money (bank deposits and notes) were freely converted into gold at the fixed price. England adopted a de facto gold standard in 1717 after .. MORE
-Adam Smith
-Leonard E. Read Full Quote >>
-Frederic Bastiat Full Quote >>