The 2018 Nobel Prize in economics has gone to Yale’s William Nordhaus for work in environmental economics and NYU’s Paul Romer for work on economic growth. Both have long been considered front-runners for the award (Romer was described as a likely winner back in the 1990s ) though the combination is unexpected. (The Nobel committee may be making a
The Austrians have long argued that equilibrium models of economic phenomena cannot capture the causal, realistic aspect of human behavior. ”All things are subject to the law of cause and effect,” says Menger in the famous opening line of his Principles of Economics. Formal economic models, in contrast, typically depict systems of equations in
Before Kitchen Confidential made him a celebrity, Anthony Bourdain was a real chef, working upscale New York kitchens at places like the Supper Club and Sullivan’s. Bourdain’s style is not to everyone’s taste, but he knows how to manage a restaurant crew. A chef, after all, is not primarily an artist, but a manager, facing the same set of
“Because Science!” has become a popular refrain. I’m not just talking about climate studies. Headline writers love to say this. Apparently “Science” recently proved that we should continue to put two spaces after a period , as we did in the old fixed-width typewriting days.* (No word yet on whether it is OK to put pineapple on pizza.) This kind of
Civil libertarians: a wholly unaccountable government agency records 100% of your electronic communications. Americans: *yawn* Media: a private firm, accountable to its board, shareholders, and customers, has been sharing some information you gave it. Americans: *meltdown* From Peter Klein’s Twitter
Nicolai Foss and I have written a paper criticizing currently fashionable “stakeholder” approaches to the firm and the idea that managers should pursue “corporate social responsibility.” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who manages $6 trillion in corporate assets, made a splash last month by insisting that corporate executives focus not on shareholders,
“Could Bill Belichick’s grasp of economics be the key to the Patriots’ success?” asks Paul Solman at PBS’s Making Sen$e . He gives examples of Belichick seemingly understanding the concepts of opportunity cost and diminishing returns (from the perspective of neoclassical economics). I much prefer Carl Menger’s way of formulating these concepts
Over at ThinkMarkets, Stefan Kolev provides an e xcellent summary of Friedrich von Wieser’s career and contributions to Austrian economics . Wieser and his brother-in-law Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk formed the second generation of the Austrian school, helping develop Carl Menger’s ideas into the rich, varied, and flourishing tradition we know today. As
Following the Parkland school shooting we’re again hearing about the “epidemic” of “gun violence” and how to stop it. I wrote a piece in 2016 about how this is exactly the wrong metaphor for school shootings or any other kind of violent action. I dislike the term “gun violence” because it depersonalizes a shooting. If person A robs person B, we
Adapted from the foreword to Principles of Economics , published by the Mises Institute (2007). “There never lived at the same time,” wrote Ludwig von Mises, “more than a score of men whose work contributed anything essential to economics.” One of those men was Carl Menger (1840–1921), professor of political economy at the University of Vienna 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.