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1 Introduction “Darwin developed “natural selection” as Malthusianism for agents without foresight. While this was harmless when applied to crabs, crabgrass and finches, it had tragic consequences when applied to human beings….” Adam Smith believed that individuals were basically the same in their ability to make choices in the light of the predicted consequences of .. MORE
Featured Article
“I say that man’s reason is given him by nature in order that he may, by his reason and by his intellect, prevent that suffering which results from the laws of nature, if you take nature without man.”—Annie Besant. 1 Introduction “The dramatic episode that clarified the difference between classical political economy and Darwin’s biology .. MORE
Book Review, Kling's Corner
Pre-industrial society was characterized by low degrees of economic, political and cultural integration. By contrast, a high degree of integration in all three respects is the hallmark of modernity… Economically, modernity breeds integration by its systematic division of labour. All members of modern society specialize in a single economic activity, offering their labour, skill or .. MORE
Price Controls
Economic and Political Philosophy
Economics and Culture
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Energy, Environment, Resources
Artificial Intelligence
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Violence and War
Public Choice Theory
Artificial Intelligence
econtalk-podcast
Would an AI simulation of your dead loved one be a blessing or an abomination? And if you knew that after your own death, your loved ones would create a simulation of you, how would that knowledge change the way you choose to live today? These are some of the questions psychologist Paul Bloom discusses with EconTalk’s Russ Roberts as we stand on the threshold .. MORE
econtalk-podcast
Economist and author Arthur Brooks talks about his book Love Your Enemies with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Brooks argues that contempt is destroying our political conversations and it’s not good for us at the personal level either. Brooks makes the case for humility and tolerance. Along the way he discusses parenting, his past as professional .. MORE
Energy, Environment, Resources
The Financial Times has an interesting interview with Esther Duflo, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019. She argues that developed nations have a moral duty to compensate poor countries for the damage done by carbon emissions: If you combine these three numbers, you get basically the money value of the cost .. MORE
Public Choice Theory
A commenter on a recent Pierre Lemieux post wrote: The only shot Trump has (and had) at the Presidency is due to the arcane system used in America to elect Presidents (why not use direct presidential elections like the rest of the world? … it is so much clearer and easy to understand! … .. MORE
Explore the lasting legacies and
continued relevance of our classic titles.
In Vienna, prior to, during, and just after World War I, Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was attaining his full intellectual maturity. For a liberal like Mises these were truly lamentable years. The years from the early 1890s to 1920 constituted perhaps the most retrogressive watershed in the history of Western civilization. They were the years .. MORE
In March 1974 I got in touch with Professor Leland Yeager, who was then president-elect of the southern Economics Association, and told him that I wanted to organize a symposium on the economic thought of Ludwig von Mises for the November 1974 meeting of our association in Atlanta, Georgia. Mises had died in October 1973, .. MORE
A Book Review of Immigration and Freedom, by Chandran Kukathas.1 Freedom is “in some way a very ordinary thing, consisting in not being hindered or obstructed in the pursuit of our everyday ends, or watched as we go about our business, or prevented from associating with others.” In his book Immigration and Freedom, Chandran Kukathas .. MORE
A Book Review of Hitler: The Politics of Seduction, by Rainer Zitelmann.1 One could truly say that there is no end to books about Adolph Hitler. Every year brings new works to add to the library already in print. This despite there being what most regard as a definitive biography in the shape of Ian .. MORE
VIDEO
On April 10, 2013, Liberty Fund and Butler University sponsored a symposium, “Capitalism, Government, and the Good Society.” The evening began with solo presentations by the three participants–Michael Munger of Duke University, Robert Skidelsky of the University of Warwick, and Richard Epstein of New York University. (Travel complications forced the fourth invited participant, James Galbraith .. MORE
VIDEO
Nobel laureate Ronald H. Coase (1910-2013) was recorded in 2001 in an extended video now available to the public. Coase’s articles, “The Problem of Social Cost” and “The Nature of the Firm” are among the most important and most often cited works in the whole of economic literature. Coase recounts how he tried to encourage .. 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.
Recycling is the process of converting waste products into reusable materials. Recycling differs from reuse, which simply means using a product again. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), about 30 percent of U.S. solid waste (i.e., the waste that is normally handled through residential and commercial garbage-collection systems) is recycled. About 15 percent is .. MORE
The fact of scarcity, which exists everywhere, guarantees that people will compete for resources. Markets are one way to organize and channel this competition. Politics is another. People use both markets and politics to get resources allocated to the ends they favor. Even in a democracy, however, political activity is startlingly different from voluntary exchange .. MORE
Some of the most significant tax changes in recent years have concerned the taxation of capital income. In 2003, Congress cut the top tax rate on dividends to 15 percent—significantly greater than the zero dividend tax that President George W. Bush wanted, but far below the 40 percent many high-income individuals paid in 2000. The .. MORE
-Adam Smith
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