Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Economics

May 08, 2019

How we benefit from billionaires

A common claim made by those who focus on economic inequality is that if business people have acquired massive wealth they must have done so at the expense of others. The solution, they claim, would be a tax on wealth that allows could be redistributed to the working poor. Continue Reading...
May 07, 2019

Is behavioral economics blind to its blindness?

I find some of the work of behavioral economists, especially that of Daniel Kahneman to be very interesting and important. Thinking Fast and Slow is essential reading. His distinctions between what he calls Type I and Type II thinking is very insightful, and the broad critique that human beings don’t always act like rational maximizers is a correct. 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...
April 29, 2019

David Bentley Hart’s sophomoric defense of socialism

“Whatever you think of the socialism discussion,” says economist Tyler Cowen, “should a Christian have and indeed display so much contempt for other human beings?” Cowen is referring, of course, to the latest sneering diatribe in the New York Times by theologian David Bentley Hart. Continue Reading...