Category:Economics

April 28, 2021 | Video

We talked with our friend Nolan Gray, a city planner, about how the COVID-19 pandemic led to many transformations in big cities, such as New York, San Francisco, and Chicago. Many people are moving away from big cities as they are not required to work there anymore. Big cities are facing enormous challenges today, due to the heavy regulations on how businesses can operate, as well as the financial burdens they inflict on residents.

Let us know in the comments below if you or any person you know moved away from a big city and how they feel about it.

#DeathOfBigCities #WorkFromHome #Metropolises

April 28, 2021 | Video

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s been a strong effort to curtail price gouging on items such as hand sanitizer and medical face masks.

What doesn’t get said enough, however, is that forcibly restricting prices from rising above a certain threshold will not in itself influence the market conditions that drive prices up.

Price gouging encourages competition by pressuring manufacturers and distributors to increase production, which over time, would actually drive down costs. Price controls during a time of crisis, however, do nothing to address the shortage problem.

April 28, 2021 | Video

Ahead of his panel on Corruption and Poverty in Latin America at LibertyCon Europe, Juan Carlos Hidalgo, former policy analyst at the Cato Institute talks about why Latin America has so many cases of corruption, the recent protests in Chile and other countries around the world.

January 11, 2021 | Video

How do we create property on Mars? We applied the thinkings of John Locke and Robert Nozick to Mars Colonization to find out.

March 9, 2018 | Post

Last month, I wrote a post that asked whether Manhattan should tax ride-shares, tax all vehicles, do something else, or do nothing at all. And you had some ideas about that. Below, I have tried to combine your answers (I got nearly 30) into a manageable set of categories. Responses were about evenly split among […]

February 5, 2018 | Post

If businesses get government subsidies to make their products cheaper, or “capture” regulation to hurt their competitors, that’s rent seeking.

January 29, 2018 | Video

Is it fair that CEOs get paid millions—even billions—while there are so many people still in poverty? Well, it depends! Watch the second entry in our question and answer series with Prof. Howie Baetjer.

January 25, 2018 | Post

From the American point of view, technology and trade are the same. From the human point of view, trade is better.

January 11, 2018 | Video

Is human blood a “public resource”? Prof. Peter Jaworski argues that your bodily fluids belong to you, and governments should let you sell them.

January 10, 2018 | Post

Charging “prices” does not a market make.

January 8, 2018 | Video

How is Communism described in theory, and how does it play out in the real world? Join us for our question and answer series with Prof. Howie Baetjer.

January 4, 2018 | Post

Social justice advocates argue that it is “society’s” duty to eliminate pain and inequality wherever and whenever it exists. What is interesting is that I have never met Mr. Society.

November 28, 2017 | Post

On the first day of my economics classes, I tell my students that if they saw my paychecks that they would realize the school is exploiting me.

November 16, 2017 | Video

We all want the safety and dependable quality that “regulation” is supposed to provide. Government can provide it to some extent, but markets can do it better, if we let them. Howard Baetjer of Towson University explains.

October 30, 2017 | Video

What’s the evidence that economic freedom is beneficial for society? Prof. Antony Davies shows charts of the free market’s effects on unemployment, inequality, poverty, and even child labor.

October 23, 2017 | Video

Remember the mid-2000s housing crash that wiped out homeowners? Well, there’s another bubble getting ready to pop, and this one’s in student debt. Prof. Antony Davies explains.

October 16, 2017 | Video

Myth 1 is that the government owes “only” $20 trillion. (In reality, it’s much more.) But luckily, Myth 10 is that there’s no way to fix this problem…

October 9, 2017 | Video

Governments don’t work the way most people think they do. Public choice theory explores how voters, politicians, and bureaucrats actually make decisions. Prof. Antony Davies explains.

October 2, 2017 | Video

If you really want to understand how the world works today, you need to rethink almost everything you’ve been told about inequality. Prof. Antony Davies explains.

September 28, 2017 | Post

It is an easy mistake to think that restrictions on international trade that help one industry “grow and prosper” will help all industries “grow and prosper.”

September 27, 2017 | Post

When we experience a large decrease in supply, or an increase in scarcity, the price mechanism helps us know what to do next.
Prices are the moral rationing agents of market exchange.

September 25, 2017 | Post

The next time someone starts explaining to you how government regulation is needed because corporations have the special privilege of limited liability, please channel Count Rugen.

September 22, 2017 | Post

In partly free societies, more intergenerational mobility isn’t always a good thing.

September 21, 2017 | Post

The media rarely celebrate ordinary people doing jobs for which they get paid. But the man selling several generators can be more impactful than the man giving one away.