Economics and Social Problems

February 14, 2022

Terrorists and your valentine have more in common than you think

Economics is the study of human action; it’s the study of individuals making choices. As a result, we can use the “economic way of thinking” to understand the decisions people make when it comes to all types of behavior, including dating and marriage, Spring break and Vegas vacations, and, yes, even why terrorists commit acts of violence or voluntarily die for their cause. Continue Reading...

January 11, 2022

Dave Ramsey, Christian witness, and the morality of markets

The tweet heard ’round the world last week involved a clip of Dave Ramsey arguing that a Christian landlord can, ethically, raise rents to market levels even if it means that the renter has to move out. Continue Reading...

December 16, 2021

Inflation is real and we’re experiencing the costs and consequences

Generally, the topic of inflation is considered dry and uninteresting, but it is one that has garnered much attention and debate over the past year. There are competing narratives as to what inflation is and why it matters, and even whether the U.S. Continue Reading...

December 07, 2021

The problem of the atheist economist

There is much in the classical liberal economist that I find attractive. By classical liberal, I do not mean the sort of political liberalism that defaults to certain presumptions of big government. Continue Reading...

October 15, 2021

Privilege and price controls make USPS too big to fail

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has come under criticism for extending first-class delivery times as part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s 10-year plan to revitalize the agency. According to Tyler Powell and David Wessel at Brookings, “The USPS has operated at a loss since 2007.” Continue Reading...

October 12, 2021

The current labor crisis started before the pandemic and has much to teach us

The United States is facing a labor shortage of epic proportions. With over 10 million jobs currently available and almost 9 million available workers waiting on the sidelines, “the U.S. now has more job openings than any time in history,” according to NBC News. Continue Reading...

October 09, 2021

Rising to the challenges of ‘so-so automation’

Fears about job loss and human obsolescence continue to consume the cultural imagination, compounded by ongoing strides in artificial intelligence and machine learning. The job-killing robots are almost at the door, we are told, mere moments away from replacing the last traces of human inefficiency and heralding the dawn of a world without work. Continue Reading...

October 08, 2021

Hold internet companies responsible for content on their platforms, not just the government

Frances Haugen’s recent whistleblower testimony regarding Facebook will only stoke the fires of the battle heating up in courts and legislatures over provisions originally addressed in Rule 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Continue Reading...

October 01, 2021

Free trade with China is still good for us all

Doug Irwin in his seminal book Free Trade Under Fire points out that Democrats and Republicans have historically vacillated on free trade. The Democratic Party of the late 19th century up until World War II was the party of trade liberalization when Republicans consistently voted for high tariffs. Continue Reading...

September 14, 2021

‘Win-win denial’: The roots of zero-sum thinking

One of the basic insights of economics is that trade is mutually beneficial, making both parties better off than they were before. It’s a proposition about human exchange that stretches back to Adam Smith’s foundational treatise, “The Wealth of Nations.” Continue Reading...

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