Economic History

Resisting Regulatory Capture in the 1857 Financial Crisis

The historical origins of financial crises teaches us about changing attitudes toward government intervention into private markets. A lesson frequently taught by twentieth century economists...

How Austerity Emerged after World War I to Preserve Capitalism

In this excerpt of a new book, The Capital Order, Clara Mattei traces the origins of austerity to the period just after World War...

Neoliberalism Beyond the Heartlands

Much of the historical analysis of neoliberalism, both its ideological roots and its outcomes, has focused on U.S. and Europe, with figures such as...

Adam Smith on Self-Betterment and Policy Impacts

In this celebration of Adam Smith’s contributions to the field of political economy, Peter J. Boettke and Alain Marciano take a passage from The...

New Research Shows The Breakup of IG Farben Increased Innovation

IG Farben used to be the world’s largest chemical company and a major innovator—until it was broken up in one of the largest antitrust...

Corporate Sovereigns and the Emergence of State Sovereignty: A Closer Look at the East India Company

A new data collection has made it possible to reveal the self-sovereignty of the English East India Trading Company that produced a company-state and...

A Posner-Stigler Smoking Gun?

A memo from George Stigler and Richard Posner to the Reagan administration was recently unearthed. To understand the meaning behind the memo, as well...

Why Jean Fourastié’s Theory of Economic Development is Still Relevant Today

In 1949, the innovative French economist and policymaker Jean Fourastié introduced a theory of growth and technological development that economists could still use today,...

The Rise, Survival, and Potential Fall of the Reagan-Era Antitrust Consensus

With major antitrust reform in the air, Brian Cheffins explores how and why a now highly controversial antitrust consensus that emerged under Ronald Reagan...

How China Became a Global Economic Powerhouse Through an Idiosyncratic Approach to Market Capitalism

Chinese reformers after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 agreed that it was necessary for China to move towards marketization, but struggled over...

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