I’ve written before on government attempts to stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation through subsidies, prizes, tax incentives, state-funded science parks and incubators, and similar policies. Both theory and evidence suggest that these programs are unlikely to be successful , for a variety of reasons. Government actors lack the information to
“Fake news” emerged as a dominant theme of the 2016 US presidential election campaign and has been in the public eye ever since. To now-president Trump, the term refers to CNN, the New York Times, and other outlets that portray him unfavorably; to Democrats, it means politically incorrect websites, blogs, and social media accounts. In this context
I am participating in a Liberty Matters dialog on Israel Kirzner’s contributions to economics . The lead essay is by Peter Boettke, followed by responses by Mario Rizzo, Frederic Sautet, and myself. Boettke’s contribution, “Israel M. Kirzner on Competitive Behavior, Industrial Structure, and the Entrepreneurial Market Process,” provides an
When I visited Shanghai in December 2016, I was interviewed by Tyler Xiong at Jifeng Bookstore about the forthcoming Chinese edition of Hayek’s The Fortunes of Liberalism , and about the prospects for liberty in China and around the world. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
NPR featured an unintentionally funny piece this morning on Donald Trump’s views toward the EU and free trade. The guest, former US ambassador to the EU Anthony Gardner, rightfully criticized the president’s view that “protection will lead to great prosperity and strength,” and called for continued global engagement by US companies and
The New York Times recently ran a fascinating piece on the innovative management practices used by sharing-economy firms like Uber, AirBNB, and TaskRabbit. These firms match riders with drivers, house guests with building owners, homeowners with plumbers, and so on. The challenge for the platform owners is that the providers are independent
[ The Capitalist and the Entrepreneur (2010)] While Schumpeter, Kirzner, Cantillon, Knight, and Mises are frequently cited in the contemporary entrepreneurship literature in economics and management, much of this literature takes, implicitly, an occupational or structural approach to entrepreneurship. Any relationship to the classic functional
[ Adapted from a Liberty Matters online discussion at the Online Library of Liberty. ] Pete Boettke provides an engaging and accessible summary of Israel Kirzner’s contributions to the analysis of competition and entrepreneurship. Kirzner’s work has inspired several generations of Austrian economists, and he is an articulate and persuasive
The dominant story in last week’s news cycle was Google engineer James Damore’s diversity memo and his subsequent firing by CEO Sundar Pichai for allegedly violating Google’s code of conduct. Damore argued that at least some of male-female employment gap at tech firms can be attributed to average biological differences between men and women,
The American Economic Review has published Esther Duflo’s Richart T. Ely Lecture, “The Economist as Plumber” (ungated version here , video version here ). The essay summarizes Duflo’s vision of economics. First, economics is primarily useful as a policy tool; i.e., the main role of the economist is to advise governments in designing laws and
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.