Pakistan has a remarkable political history. Prime ministers and presidents do not merely lose elections or retire from public life. They have repeatedly been arrested, imprisoned, disqualified from office, forced into exile or, in the most extreme case, executed. The temptation is to conclude that Pakistani politicians must simply be unusually corrupt. Corruption is certainly […]
Why Pakistani Politicians End Up in Jail
Why Pakistani Politicians End Up in Jail
04 Sep 2026 1 Comment
in development economics, economic history, economics of crime, growth disasters, law and economics Tags: Pakistan
After US Defeat: Vietnam and Afghanistan
04 Sep 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, industrial organisation, Marxist economics, war and peace Tags: Afghanistan, Vietnam
The American defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan are often compared as military and foreign-policy failures. But there is another comparison that matters at least as much: what happened to the people left behind after the Americans departed? If we put aside the destruction caused during the wars themselves and concentrate on their aftermaths, an important difference […]
After US Defeat: Vietnam and Afghanistan
The Milei Miracle, Part V
02 Sep 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic growth, growth disasters, growth miracles, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics Tags: Argentina
The world’s worst-performing economy for 100 years has – in a remarkably short period of time – become an amazing case study of economic liberalization. Thanks to President Javier Milei, Argentina is now enjoying an economic miracle. In Part V of this series (previous versions here, here, here, and here), we’re going to illustrate Milei’s […]
The Milei Miracle, Part V
Can Chile Once Again Become the Latin Tiger?
30 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic growth, economic history, growth miracles, history of economic thought, macroeconomics Tags: Chile
In 2012, I wrote that pro-market reforms had turned Chile into the Latin Tiger. But two years later, in 2014, I wrote a column fretting that a recently elected left-leaning government was going to undermine prosperity. Based on the Maddison data, my concerns were justified. The country’s economic performance can be divided into three periods. […]
Can Chile Once Again Become the Latin Tiger?
Fidel Castro: Human Garbage
22 Aug 2026 1 Comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: Cuba, regressive left
I’ve written many columns documenting Cuba’s economic misery. Probably the most-persuasive evidence that socialism has failed in that country is the chart showing how Cuba has fallen behind other (very similar) countries ever since Fidel Castro took over more than six decades ago. Though I’ve always thought the most-damning visual came from the Economist, which […]
Fidel Castro: Human Garbage
The Confucian fertility paradox
21 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, econometerics, economic history, economics of love and marriage, growth miracles, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, population economics
Total fertility rates in East Asia have fallen to levels without historical precedent, even though the region’s Confucian heritage long placed extraordinary emphasis on family continuity and large families. We argue that this “Confucian Fertility Paradox” dissolves once we separate two strands of the tradition and recognize that modernization affected them very differently. The pro-natal…
The Confucian fertility paradox
Incentive Misalignment in Communism: the case of Vietnam
15 Aug 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, Marxist economics Tags: economics of central planning, Vietnam
Rainer Zitelmann writes in How Capitalism Beat Communism in Vietnam in Reason Magazine, The state collectives did not reward members for the amount of rice they produced, but instead counted how many days they had worked. 183 more words
Incentive Misalignment in Communism: the case of Vietnam
Further progress in South America
08 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, health economics Tags: The Great Escape
The share of people who are hungry has been decreasing faster in South America than anywhere else in the world. It is down by one-third since 2020, according to a report published on July 21st by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Just 3.5% of people in the region consume insufficient calories, the lowest…
Further progress in South America
The population bust
05 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, labour economics, labour supply, population economics
Trump is Right to Take On the Climate Litigation Complex
29 Jul 2026 1 Comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, economics of bureaucracy, economics of climate change, economics of education, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: climate alarmism
Whatever one makes of President Trump’s chosen words, the underlying demand – that a body claiming the authority of disinterested science should actually be disinterested – is one any serious defender of scientific integrity ought to be able to endorse. Surely the most litigated-against President in US history is right in ensuring that judges overseeing…
Trump is Right to Take On the Climate Litigation Complex
The common sense of Fareed Zakaria
28 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in labour economics, development economics, macroeconomics, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, unemployment
This is one of the best Op-Eds you will read this year, though it deliberately deemphasizes the personal (no one is attacked) in a manner that will result in less attention. Better to write the truth! Excerpt: Why has this [voter discontent} happened? Some of it is economic. Expensive housing, stagnant incomes and widening inequality have fueled public…
The common sense of Fareed Zakaria
Fixing Argentina’s Punitive Tax System
20 Jul 2026 1 Comment
in Austrian economics, development economics, macroeconomics, economic growth, applied price theory, economic history, fiscal policy, growth disasters Tags: Argentina
Almost exactly one year ago, the Center for Freedom and Prosperity released this short video as part of a series on the additional reforms Javier Milei should implement to maximize Argentinian prosperity. Let’s take a closer look at the country’s tax policy, and I’ll start today’s column with an analogy. When Milei took office, Argentina […]
Fixing Argentina’s Punitive Tax System
Is Progress Sustainable? Mokyr’s Nobel Lecture
18 Jul 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic growth, economic history, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, macroeconomics
“Progress” is a word that often generates both a lot of positive vibes, and also a lot of pushback? Progress toward what? At what cost? So it’s perhaps useful to specify that when I refer to “progress,” I’m referring to an overall movement toward good things of life: in no particular order, longer and healthier…
Is Progress Sustainable? Mokyr’s Nobel Lecture
Missing women on Indian streets
09 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, discrimination, econometerics, economics of crime, gender, growth miracles, law and economics Tags: sex discrimination
How absent are women from city streets in the developing world? We answer this question using GPS-linked wearable cameras and randomized street audits across ~900 kilometers of roads in greater Mumbai. Across 4000+ street images containing 23,000+ visible person observations, women account for 16.4% of visible people in Mumbai and 14.7% in Navi Mumbai, far…
Missing women on Indian streets
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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