In over twenty-five years of teaching undergraduate students, I have heard the same refrain countless times: free markets have many problems that government has to step in to solve. Indeed, students expect government to “step in” so much that markets occupy a peripheral role in their idealized economic system. Even students with an ideological
In Abbeville County, South Carolina, a fellow named Arthur Bixby barricaded himself in his house and unloaded on the cops who were trying to serve a warrant on him. The standoff is now over. Bixby is hospitalized in critical condition, while his son and wife are in custody , and two officers are dead. How did this all begin? The SC Dept. of
The 2018 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science was awarded for the 50 th time today, to William D. Nordhaus of Yale University and Paul M. Romer of New York University. Although Austrian school economists might find common ground on a few aspects of Nordhaus and Romer’s work, such as Romer’s criticism of “mathiness” in economics, there is not
In this article by economist Jeffrey Sachs, pharmaceutical company Gilead is taken to task for selling its hepatitis C cure, Sofosbuvir (sold as Sovaldi), at a price of $84,000 per course of treatment. Sachs says that the actual production cost of Sofosbuvir is about $100. Sachs says that Gilead is “bilking the taxpayer” by charging the government
Volume 16, no. 1 of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics is now available online. Articles are: Dominick Armentano, 2013 AERC Ludwig von Mises Lecture, “Antitrust Myths: Speak Truth to Power,” Bernard McSherry and Berry K. Wilson, “Overcertification and the NYCHA’s Clamor for a NYSE Clearinghouse,” Art Carden, “Economic Calculation in the
Volume 15, no. 3 of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics was made available online last week. Articles are: William N. Butos, “Monetary Orders and Institutions: A Hayekian Perspective,” Jan Pruša and Pavel Ryska, “Efficiency Wages and Involuntary Unemployment Revisited,” Kenneth A. Zahringer, “Monetary Disequilibrium Theory and Business
Volume 15, no. 1 of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics was made available online this week. Articles are: Joseph T. Salerno, “A Reformulation of Austrian Business Cycle Theory in Light of the Financial Crisis,” Adrian Ravier and Peter Lewin, “The Subprime Crisis,” Mihai Vladimir Topan, “A Note on Rothbardian Decision-Making Rents,” George
Today the Wall Street Journal published (p. A18 or online ) an article by David R. Henderson on Phelps’s Nobel Prize award. Henderson notes that Phelps himself credited Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises. But though Mises’s 1911 Theory of Money and Credit is deserving of attention, “Mr. Phelps gets the credit because—this is not his
The BBC website reports here that the U.S. Joint Economic Committee is looking at the trade taking place in interactive computer gaming societies like Second Life or Eve Online. Apparently the economies in these societies can be fairly sophisticated , the sum “GDP” rivaling small countries like Namibia, and they are becoming large enough to
Me and my friend, Herb, were having a few yeasty libations the other night at the malt shop. As we drained our last mug, here comes the waitress bearing down on our table with that small, but ominous piece of paper that must be indented with a viable credit card. Herb looked at me with zero-round eyes, the same shape as his bank account. “Uh,
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.