It would take true Milei-like ardour to slice through Brazil’s economic troubles. These are caused by a gnarly mix of high public spending, stubborn inflation and low saving. The result is a crippling cost of capital. Some analysts put Brazil’s real interest rate, the BCB’s policy rate adjusted for next year’s expected inflation, at 9% or…
Brazil’s economic problems, in a nutshell
Brazil’s economic problems, in a nutshell
26 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, development economics, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, growth disasters, labour economics, macroeconomics, welfare reform Tags: Brazil
Vladimir Putin and western hypocrisy
21 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, International law, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Ukraine, Iraq, Russia, Afghanistan, economics of colonialism
Reading the final chapters of Orlando Figes’ excellent and highly readable history of Russia, about the rise of Vladimir Putin and the lead-up to the war with Ukraine, I found myself growing more sympathetic to Putin’s accusations of western hypocrisy, and began to make a list of examples. Putin is a dangerous monster, but sometimes […]
Vladimir Putin and western hypocrisy
Book review: The Narrow Corridor
16 Oct 2026 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking
My last book review was of Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s 2012 book Why Nations Fail. It’s taken me a while (with many interruptions), but I recently finished reading their 2019 book… 731 more words
Book review: The Narrow Corridor
India Rejects UN Climate Politics in Favor of Industrialization
07 Oct 2026 1 Comment
in development economics, economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, growth disasters, growth miracles, International law, resource economics Tags: India
By Vijay Jayaraj India’s External Affairs Minister, Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, used the U.N. General Assembly gathering to say something that climate scaremongers like Al Gore and John Kerry have spent… The post India Rejects UN Climate Politics in Favor of Industrialization appeared first on Watts Up With That?.
India Rejects UN Climate Politics in Favor of Industrialization
Capitalism or Free Enterprise?
29 Sep 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, liberalism, libertarianism, Marxist economics Tags: The Great Enrichment
I’ve addressed this issue in 2016 and 2021, so let’s continue this once-every-five-years tradition and ask whether supporters of economic liberty should stop advocating for “capitalism.” Instead, they should say they believe in “free enterprise” or the “free market.” I’ve used all of these terms, but polling data suggests that I’m making a mistake when […]
Capitalism or Free Enterprise?
The Great Enrichment
23 Sep 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, liberalism, Marxist economics Tags: The Great Enrichment
Why Papua New Guinea is so interesting
18 Sep 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters Tags: PNG
And this leads to the most interesting part of this story: how the highlanders were so isolated for so long. I want to acknowledge that the highlanders were not completely, hermetically sealed off from the outside world – it’s just that knowledge of outside world never actually made it to them or vice versa. Over…
Why Papua New Guinea is so interesting
Slow Growth: Mexico Edition
16 Sep 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, growth disasters, industrial organisation, law and economics, property rights, survivor principle Tags: Mexico
For the last eight years or so, going back before the pandemic, Mexico’s economy has been growing at 1% per year or less, which is barely faster than the population of Mexico has been growing. It is a fact of arithmetic that an upper-middle-income country, as Mexico is classified by the World Bank, will not…
Slow Growth: Mexico Edition
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
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
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
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
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
Fixing Argentina’s Punitive Tax System
20 Jul 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, development economics, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, growth disasters, macroeconomics 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
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