By Randall G. Holcombe •
Wednesday, November 5, 2014 8:29 AM PST
Gordon Tullock, one of the founders of the sub-discipline of public choice, passed away November 3, at the age of 92. Public choice uses the methods of economics to analyze political decision-making, and Tullock’s book, co-authored with James Buchanan, The Calculus of Consent, was a pioneering work in public choice. It is the best-known…
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By William F. Shughart II •
Thursday, October 16, 2014 8:30 AM PDT
October 16, 2014, marks the 241st anniversary of an event that helped launch the American Revolution against King George III, eventually leading the thirteen colonies to independence from the British Empire. On that same fall day in 1773, the first public assembly to protest the Tea Act convened in Philadelphia. (The more famous Boston…
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By Abigail R. Hall •
Wednesday, September 10, 2014 1:39 PM PDT
Class is back in session for most colleges and universities across the country. Last year, I had the privilege of teaching college economics courses for the first time. We discussed many issues, from the economics of War on Drugs and the War on Terror, to the minimum wage, to why airlines offer discounts to…
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By William F. Shughart II •
Monday, May 5, 2014 1:50 PM PDT
I first met Professor Gary Becker (1930-2014) about 15 years ago, when he came to Oxford, Miss., to present a public lecture at the University of Mississippi sponsored by the Robert M. Hearin Foundation. My coauthor and then-colleague Bob Tollison and I breakfasted with him early on the morning of Dr. Becker’s visit, after…
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By Robert Higgs •
Monday, April 21, 2014 9:19 PM PDT
I’ve just finished reading Leo Tolstoy’s remarkable book The Kingdom of God Is Within You. This was written in Russian and completed in 1893, but the Russian censors forbade its publication. It circulated in unpublished form in Russia, however, and was soon translated into other languages and published abroad. It had substantial influence on…
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By Carl P. Close •
Monday, December 23, 2013 4:53 PM PST
The winter 2014 issue of The Independent Review is hot off the press! This edition of the Independent Institute’s 160-page scholarly journal includes a stimulating mix of timely topics and enduring themes, including a symposium on Nobel laureate economist James M. Buchanan and classical liberalism. Read it and gain a deeper understanding of the…
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By Mary L. G. Theroux •
Wednesday, October 9, 2013 2:55 PM PDT
Further to Bob Higgs’s earlier post, Thinking Is Research, Too!, down in Texas, the Chairman of the Dallas Fed has the odd practice of looking beyond government stats and actually (gasp!) asking real people how they think the economy is going. From a profile of the President and CEO of the Dallas Fed, Richard…
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By Samuel R. Staley •
Friday, June 7, 2013 1:22 PM PDT
A funny thing happened to Jay Gatsby on the way to the Silver Screen in 2013: He became a sympathetic and all too human capitalist. This may not have been Hollywood’s intent, but the most recent adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic may have elevated a minor sub-theme in the book to a new…
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By Robert Higgs •
Friday, April 12, 2013 2:03 PM PDT
There are now many more libertarians in the world than there were fifty years ago. Libertarian writing has increased greatly, and the readership of libertarian literature has increased substantially, especially since the development and widespread adoption of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Yet, it seems to me, we no longer have libertarians…
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By Robert Higgs •
Thursday, June 7, 2012 11:29 AM PDT
Proposition: Putative “public demand,” especially as expressed by voting, drives the political-governmental system. Elected officials and hence the bureaucracy subordinate to them may be viewed as perfect agents of the electorate. Adherence to this proposition characterizes the bulk of all analysis dealing with the growth of government in the West, regardless of analytical tradition…
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