economists
Buchanan’s Samaritan’s Dilemma
The Samaritan’s dilemma is not only about the detrimental effects help can have on the beneficiaries. As James Buchanan explained in his 1975 essay,...
The Roots of America’s Competition Revolution
Proponents of the current transformation in America’s competition policy managed to shape legislative reform proposals, push public antitrust agencies to boost enforcement, and successfully pressure the...
How Sadie Alexander, the First Black Economics PhD, Became a Voice for Black Workers
A whole century has passed since Sadie Alexander became the first African American to receive a PhD in economics in the United States. Economist...
Harold Demsetz and Israel Kirzner Understood That Competition Regulates Markets
Economists Harold Demsetz and Israel Kirzner challenged the prevailing orthodoxy in microeconomic analysis and public policy beginning with their respective work in the 1960s....
Iowa’s “Butter-Margarine War”: T. W. Schultz’s Fight for Academic Freedom
During the Second World War, economists at Iowa State College published a pamphlet titled “Putting Dairying on a War Footing,” which would later come...
James M. Buchanan Trusted Market Mechanisms Because He Trusted Individuals
James Buchanan, one of the most influential economists of the twentieth century, believed that individuals were able to voluntarily devise private and market-like institutional...
An Unusual History: A Conversation Between Two Economists About the Economics Department at the University of Chicago
In conversation with Sebastian Edwards, Arnold C. Harberger reflects on his time at the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago.
Editor’s note: The...
Why Big Tech Companies Should Engage With Academia, and Why They Don’t
“Academic engagement” of a Big Tech firm: that job should exist. But it has not happened, and it probably won’t happen, unless we get...
We Need More Research on Corporate Corruption
The last decade has seen a continuous drumbeat of revelations of corporate corruption and the current economic crisis is sure to reveal many more....
“Amazon Is Getting Richer by the Moment —But There’s a Limit to How Many People Jeff Bezos Can Buy”
In an interview with ProMarket, Barry Lynn discusses the current state of American antimonopoly, what the Covid-19 crisis has taught us about the fragility...
