No Matter Who Is President, Don’t Trust Government Data
byby Connor O’Keeffe President Trump caused a stir last Friday after he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) hours after…
Economics
Trade-Offs in Trump’s Trade Policy
byby Michael Froman One of the hardest jobs of a policymaker is to weigh trade-offs. Few policies are clean, absolute, and without costs. The…
The trick that changed the world
by“..for any entity beyond maturity, further growth equates either to obesity, or cancer.” “Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange…
Does a government budget surplus contribute to national savings?
byBy Dr Frank Shostak By popular thinking the budget deficit reduces national savings, whilst a budget surplus is seen as contributing to savings. National…
Fungibility: The Legal Fiction at the Heart of Modern Money
byFrom gold to government IOUs—the quiet revolution in what money means By Elias Sanchez Ask someone what money is, and they’ll likely gesture to…
The Economic Success of Singapore and Hong Kong
byBy Lipton Matthews Bryan Cheang’s Economic Liberalism and the Developmental State is a timely and intellectually daring book that enters the long-standing debate over the East…
After 50 Years of US-Government-Sponsored Housing Finance: Why Are Houses So Unaffordable?
byBy Alex J. Pollock [This article was originally published in Housing Finance International.] After more than fifty years of US government-sponsored housing finance, Why has…
Financialisation as Statecraft: A Quiet Engine of Boom, Bust, and Wealth Transfer
byAustrian insights from the lecture hall—on DSGE models, fractional-reserve banking, and the quiet architecture of boom and bust During my master’s programme at the…
The Myth of Rational Economic Design: Bolivia’s Slide into Hydrocarbon and Dollar Crisis
byBy Elias Sanchez Throughout history, policymakers have repeatedly fallen prey to what Friedrich Hayek termed the fatal conceit—the belief that social and economic orders…
The New Mercantilism and Economic Armaments
byThe reelection of Donald Trump to the American presidency has seemingly brought bought a radical disruption to the political, social, and economic status quo…