Liberty-minded philanthropists have managed to foster a vibrant network of scholars and organizations engaged in advancing the ideals of a free society. Some donors who have underwritten the liberty movement have also attempted to make colleges and universities across the United States more conducive to the spread of these ideals, but their efforts have...
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The fall 2012 issue of The Independent Review, our quarterly journal edited by Robert Higgs, is hot off the press! As always, The Independent Review deals with a wide variety of fascinating questions about economic policy, political and social theory, and intellectual history. To test your wits, try answering the questions addressed in the...
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The twenty-first century opened with optimism, as first the technology sector and then the housing sector boomed. But then came the financial crisis and the Great Recession—the worst economic malaise since the 1930s. Why, after several decades of economic stability, did the business cycle return with such force? Most attempts to answer this question...
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How does Randy Barnett—the law professor and former criminal prosecutor credited with providing the intellectual and legal framework of the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act—expect to feel in the moments before the U.S. Supreme Court announces its decision? I will never forget the feeling in the pit of my stomach every time...
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State governments across the country have, over the years, adopted more than a dozen types of institutions to help limit spending, limit the growth of spending, or limit the volatility of spending. Examples include strict balanced-budget requirements, line-item vetoes, and tax and spending limits. Unfortunately, most reforms have yielded disappointing results. Which measures have...
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“We do not bully our teachers, and we will sue any who say that we do!” It sounds like a headline from the Onion, but these words of Orwellian doublespeak also could have come from Queen’s University Belfast. In response to an article in the summer 2012 issue of The Independent Review, the university...
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Economics provides a powerful framework for understanding what goes on in the marketplace, the voting booth, the family, the community, and every other sphere of social activity. Its greatest teachers—from before Adam Smith on down to the present—have always impressed upon the public their discipline’s explanatory powers and importance for human well-being. In his...
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Do the banking panics of the late 19th century prove that a safe and sound financial system requires government oversight of banks? Paul Krugman (and most every pundit) seems to think so. In his New York Times column of May 13, he writes: “Current right-wing mythology has it that bad banking is always the...
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Water shortages and poor water quality are looming threats in many developing countries. By contrast, water supplies and water quality have increased in much of the United States due to a specific policy innovation: water markets and market-like exchanges. The growing participation of wildlife agencies and conservationists in water markets and exchanges is especially...
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Born May 8, 1899, F. A. Hayek made landmark contributions to more subjects than most social scientists are even conversant in: economic theory, social-science methodology, political and legal theory, intellectual history—he had something valuable to say about all of these and more. Because so many great pieces about Hayek’s life and work have been...
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