Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
17 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic history, entrepreneurship, growth disasters, growth miracles, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply Tags: creative destruction, The Great Enrichment
Tweet… is from page 103 of Historical Impromptus, a 2020 collection of some of Deirdre McCloskey’s work on economic history; this quotation, specifically, is from McCloskey’s 2000 review, in the Minnesota Journal of Global Trade, of Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree and John Gray’s False Dawn [original emphasis]: Globalization encourages the capitalist…
Quotation of the Day…
17 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, law and economics, property rights Tags: competition law
Meta’s decision to limit third-party AI access to WhatsApp Business has quickly drawn antitrust scrutiny across multiple jurisdictions. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Competition and Consumer Commission (CCCC) is the latest authority to open an investigation. But before the case can answer whether Meta’s conduct harms competition, a more basic question…
COMESA, WhatsApp Business, and Antitrust in Search of a Theory
14 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, managerial economics, market efficiency, organisational economics, Public Choice
My First Theorem of Government is the simple observation that insiders are the biggest beneficiaries of government. I was motivated to release that theorem because bad news for taxpayers is good news for bureaucrats, consultants, contractors, lobbyists, and politicians. A classic example is the Department of Education in Washington, which has squandered more than $2.6 […]
Cost Overruns Are Bad for Taxpayers, Good for Insiders
14 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, economic history, economics of regulation, macroeconomics Tags: European Union
Since I’m currently in Europe as part of the Free Market Road Show, I’m going to share some more data (for other examples, see here, here, here, and here) on why the United States should not become more like Europe. As I noted a few years ago, people in the United States enjoy much higher levels […]
Don’t Copy Europe
13 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics Tags: taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply
I frequently make the point that America’s tax system is more progressive than European tax systems. But not because the United States imposes higher tax rates on upper-income households. Instead, the big difference is that lower-income and middle-class households in the United States face much lower tax burdens than their European counterparts. In those columns, […]
Fleecing Rich Taxpayers: Europe vs. the United States
12 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, entrepreneurship, financial economics, fiscal policy, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, liberalism, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply
Below is my column on Fox.com on the new push by Democrats to impose a wealth tax nationally. While the…
Eat the Rich: Sanders and Khanna Introduce Federal Billionaires Tax
12 Mar 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction
Neither theory, history nor the latest data suggests a recession driven by AI job dislocation is likely By Greg Ip. Excerpts:”Technological advancements always cost some people their jobs—those whose skills can be easily substituted by tech. But their loss is more than offset through three other channels. The new technology enhances the skills of some survivors,…
Tech Has Never Caused a Job Apocalypse. Don’t Bet on It Now.
09 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in Adam Smith, applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic history
TweetIn today’s National Post I celebrate the 250th anniversary – which is this coming Monday, March 9th – of the publication of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. A slice: Smith then inquired into wealth’s causes. He didn’t inquire into the causes of poverty. Smith understood that…
The Wealth of Nations: Happy 250th Birthday!
08 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, labour economics, law and economics, managerial economics, organisational economics, personnel economics, property rights, Public Choice, theory of the firm, unemployment Tags: creative destruction, employment law, European Union, Germany
In our textbook, Modern Principles, Tyler and I write: Imagine how difficult it would be to get a date if every date required marriage? In the same way, it’s more difficult to find a job when every job requires a long-term commitment from the employer. In two new excellent pieces, Brian Albrecht and Pieter Garicano…
The Hidden Cost of Hard-to-Fire Labor Laws: Why European Firms Don’t Take Risks
07 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, financial economics, growth disasters, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, property rights
When Milton Friedman pondered what would happen if a helicopter dropped $1,000 from the sky, he likely never imagined that one day a military cargo plane would scatter millions of dollars into one of Bolivia’s largest cities. But while the Nobel Prize-winning economist worried about the inflation that an influx of cash could generate, the impact in…
The actual helicopter drop?
07 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, economic history, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, income redistribution, liberalism, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics Tags: taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply
Is it time to pack our belongings and head to Argentina, where Javier Milei is dramatically improving economic policy and cultural attitudes? I’m joking, but also not joking. The reason I’m not joking is that there’s a very depressing scenario for America’s near-term economic outlook. It involves these six potential developments. Thanks in part to […]
The Nightmare Scenario Leading to a Wealth Tax
04 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, history of economic thought, law and economics, Public Choice
Law & economics traces its intellectual roots to the University of Chicago. That lineage still shapes how the field is understood. Chicago price theory—especially Gary Becker’s (1976) systematic application of maximization, equilibrium, and stable preferences across social life, and George Stigler’s (1992, p. 459) suggestion that “every durable social institution or practice is efficient, or…
The Evaluative Emptiness of the Economic Approach to Law
02 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, history of economic thought, international economics Tags: free trade, tariffs
We study the macroeconomic effects of tariff policy using U.S. historical data from 1840–2024. We construct a narrative series of plausibly exogenous tariff changes – based on major legislative actions, multilateral negotiations, and temporary surcharges – and use it as an instrument to identify a structural tariff shock. Tariff increases are contractionary: imports fall sharply,…
The Macroeconomic Effects of Tariffs
02 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, industrial organisation, law and economics, liberalism, Murray Rothbard, privatisation, Public Choice
Update: I’m doing a Substack Live today on You Have No Right to Your Culture with the Boyd Institute’s Peter Banks. 4 PM ET.SummaryThis is the shortest chapter of the book, just six pages long. Rothbard makes a laundry list of what he calls “the major problem areas of our society” and argues that government…
Bet On It Book Club: For a New Liberty, Chapter 4
01 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction
When thinking about what makes an economy flourish, many of us tend to focus on the success stories of innovation and growth. After all, success stories involve an element of risk, which means a chance of failure. When it’s more expensive to fail, then avoiding the risk of failure–by avoiding innovative but risky business choices–starts…
Laying Off Workers: Cheap vs. Expensive
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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