Property rights are the most fundamental institution in any society. They determine who has decision-making authority over assets and who bears the costs and benefits of those decisions. They assign ownership, wealth, political influence, and social standing. They make markets possible; define...

F.A Hayek is one of the most important and influential advocates of liberalism in the 20th century. His theory is famously based on the concept of spontaneous order, an order emerging from the interaction of individuals without central control and appears critical of every form of...

Since the dawn of their prolific collaboration in 1998, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson have confronted a plethora of cardinal questions in social sciences: Which institutions support long-term growth (Acemoglu et al., 2005)? What economic conditions facilitate the consolidation of...

Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Ideology (2020) offers a powerful critique of ideological justifications for inequality in capitalist societies. Does this mean we should reject capitalist institutions altogether? This paper defends some aspects of capitalism by explaining the epistemic function...

Die globale Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise hat in den vergangenen Jahren eine intensive Debatte über die angemessene Funktionsweise der Weltwirtschaft ausgelöst. Der Neoliberalismus, der in den vergangenen drei Jahrzehnten das Denken und Handeln der Politik und der Wirtschaftsakteure maßgeblich...

For decades technological and economic progress under the capitalist model has placed social norms and the natural environment under great pressure, imposing a particularly heavy burden on the poor and underprivileged. Recognising the role of corporations in these developments, the emergence of...

The term “neoliberalism” is encountered everywhere today. In popular leftist political rhetoric it is often simply a place-holder for “contemporary capitalism”, “austerity politics”, and “all that is bad in our world”, giving that rhetoric the appearance of a new diagnostic edge....