September 29 is the birthday of Ludwig von Mises, one of the giants of the Austrian School of economics. In my book Choice: Cooperation, Enterprise, and Human Action, I distill the work of Mises as presented in his masterpiece, Human Action. Elsewhere I have summarized his contributions to economic science, so in the present...
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Yesterday my heart sank when a former colleague sent me a note saying, “The greatest man is gone... Giancarlo passed away.” This “greatest man” was Giancarlo Ibárgüen S., the former president of Universidad Francisco Marroquin (UFM) in Guatemala, who lost his seven-year struggle with ALS at the age of 53. Giancarlo was my boss...
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In January I left Suffolk University to start the new Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University. I remain affiliated as a Senior Fellow with the Independent Institute and plan to continue my productive relationship with them well into the future. Since I’ve continued to write commentary for Independent some of you might have...
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Arline Alchian Hoel reports that her father, Armen Alchian, “passed away peacefully in his sleep early this morning at his home in Los Angeles.” He was 98 years old. Armen Alchian was a major figure in the economics profession for more than half a century. At UCLA, where he spent his academic career as...
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I was surprised to see James Buchanan characterized in the New York Times as “an austere man with a severe aspect that many students found intimidating.” I was never a student of his, but the James Buchanan I had the pleasure of getting to know as a guest at numerous meetings of the Mont...
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When Paul Krugman starts attacking us, we know we’re doing something right. John Maynard Keynes’s presumptive heir, Krugman apparently doesn’t like the findings of our recent book edited by Research Fellow David Beckworth, Boom & Bust Banking: The Causes and Cures of the Great Recession, exposing the profound fallacies of Lord Keynes’s love affair...
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With the very exciting, rapid development of online learning, I am delighted that new programs to provide excellent courses in economics and history have recently been launched by scholars who have worked with the Independent Institute. 1. The first is from the historian and best-selling author Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (Senior Fellow, Ludwig von...
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Senior Fellow Robert Higgs is interviewed here by Thomas Woods on “The Peter Schiff Show.” Dr. Higgs discusses how the federal government prolonged and deepened the Great Depression of the 1930s that lasted until after World War II when such policies were either ended or radically reduced. Moreover, the current attempts at central-government planning...
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Independent Institute Research Director Alexander Tabarrok is interviewed here by Ray Lehmann on the FIRE (Finance, Insurance & Real Estate News) Podcast for the Heartland Institute. The interview discusses many government barriers that exist that block innovation and what policy reforms could be adopted now to restore entrepreneurship and prosperity. Issues addressed include patents...
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First performed publicly last week in New York at The Economist‘s conference, The Buttonwood Gathering, here is the sequel to the sensational rap video pitting the economic ideas of Austrian School economist F.A. Hayek against those of interventionist John M. Keynes. The original video, “Fear the Boom and Bust,” has had more than 1.5...
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