Samuel Gregg

Samuel Gregg is the Friedrich Hayek Chair in Economics and Economic History at the American Institute for Economic Research, an affiliate scholar at the Acton Institute, and author, most recently, of The Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World.

Posts by Samuel Gregg

August 01, 2019

America’s unfortunate debt consensus

In an age of deep partisanship and political division, there’s one thing about which America’s political class appears to agree—the public debt being incurred by the U.S. Government. This year, the United States Treasury expects to issue about $1.23 trillion in debt, down slightly from the $1.34 trillion issued in 2018. Continue Reading...
July 24, 2019

Religion in Europe? It’s complicated

It’s not unusual for Europe—especially Western Europe—to be portrayed as a continent in which religion and, more specifically, religious practice is in decline. No doubt there’s much truth to that. When you start looking at the hard information, however, it soon becomes apparent that the situation is more complicated. Continue Reading...
July 19, 2019

Christianity in Iraq: The brutal truth

When it comes to understanding the present plight of Middle-Eastern Christianity, one author to whom I usually turn is Father Benedict Kiely. He’s the founder of Nasarean.org, which tries to help persecuted Christians in the Middle East. Continue Reading...
July 10, 2019

Who’s an Old Whig?

“Old Whig” isn’t a political term that trips off the tongue these days. The phrase itself was coined by Edmund Burke in his August 1791 pamphlet An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs in which he sought to explain to some of his erstwhile colleagues why his rejection of the French Revolution was entirely consistent with Whig principles rather than a betrayal. Continue Reading...
June 04, 2019

The European left and immigration

Danish elections are usually not high on the list of must-watch political contests but the forthcoming election on June 5 is one that I think worth watching. As this Guardian article illustrates, it is distinguished by the fact that the Danish Social Democrats—the main center-left party in Denmark—have revisited and substantially changed their approach to immigration. Continue Reading...
May 30, 2019

Tocqueville and Novak at the Heritage Foundation

This week, I gave a public lecture at the Heritage Foundation as part of its speakers’ series on the theme “Free Markets: The Ethical Economic Choice.” At a time in which many Americans, at least according to opinion polls, say that they are attracted to socialism, I thought it would be helpful to consider what two observers of socialism, the French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville and the American theologian Michael Novak, had to say about this subject. Continue Reading...
May 07, 2019

Why capital markets matter

Of all the many components of a market economy, I don’t think that any are as misunderstood — or reviled — as capital markets. They have never been held in high esteem, and the financial crisis of 2008 did enormous damage to their already low reputation. Continue Reading...