Latest
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Japan’s Debt Crisis Is a Global Warning
Japan can watch debt-service costs consume its budget, or suppress rates and risk inflation. Decades of borrowing have eliminated the easy options.
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What Payroll Revisions Reveal about the Economy
One disappointing number tells us little about recession risk. A sustained series of sizable downward revisions deserves more attention.
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When ‘Consumer Protection’ Protects Producers from Competition
Claims to “protect consumers” often shield established industries from competition. The century-old battle over the definition of “whiskey” shows how.
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What’s Worse — Authoritarian Capitalism or Democratic Socialism?
Dictatorship is always a tragedy. But history suggests that a tyrant who allows markets does far less damage than one who abolishes them.
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Rediscovering the Comparative Advantage of Business Schools
Before asking students how businesses should change society, business schools should ensure they understand how businesses create value in the first place.
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Why Oil Keeps Getting More Abundant
Oil deposits may be finite, but human knowledge is not. Freedom, innovation, and entrepreneurship continually transform our use of resources.
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Economists Are Not Blind to the Full Range of Human Motivations
The fact that economists describe consumption as an end does not mean they dismiss humanity’s higher purposes.
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When Rational Individual Choices Produce Collective Waste
Why we keep paying for practices nobody wants—and what finally makes them disappear.
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What the Olympics Really Cost: Rio’s 10-Year Legacy of Debt and Destruction
Rio 2016, like many ambitious projects, combined political cronyism and weak market discipline. Ordinary Brazilians are still paying the bill.
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Can a Freely Given Coconut Begin Civilization?
Trust precedes trade. Our natural empathy, our desire to see others do well, cultivates social order and generates the wealth of nations.