Adam Smith infused the expression “impartial spectator” with a plexus of related meanings, one of which is a super-being, which normally would aptly take the definite article the, and which bears parallels to monotheistic ideas of God. As for any genuine, identified, human spectator of an...

In a recent edition of Economic Affairs, Edwin van de Haar provides evidence against the thesis that trade fosters peace. However, I argue his description of the “trade-fosters-peace” thesis as insufficiently precise is incorrect. By its nature, we must use probabilistic language....

On regular issues of policy reform—presupposing a stable integrated polity— Hume, Smith, and Burke were liberal in the original political meaning of “liberal.” Thus, on policy reform, although they accorded the status quo a certain presumption (as any reasonable person must), the more...

In the first edition of the Wealth of Nations, published in London in 1776, the author-works list is presented in a very unusual place: directly opposite the table of contents. That placement suggests a continuity and unity in Adam Smith’s published works. A photograph provides a touchstone to...

We explore the 1764 pamphlet, In Vindication of the Continental Colonies of America, from A Censure of Mr Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. With some Reflections on Slavery in General. Authorship has been attributed to Arthur Lee. We doubt that attribution and here simply treat the...

What is the long-term impact of pre-colonial ethnic institutions? I examine the consequences of the fragmentation of local indigenous communities produced by Spanish rule in Mexico. To do this I make use of unique data from 18th century pueblos — the basis of modern-day counties — to study...

We use a database generated by a policy intervention that incentivized learning as measured by standardized exams to investigate empirically the relationship between cheating by students and cash incentives to students and teachers. We adapt methods from the education measurement literature to...

Israel Kirzner has been one of the leaders in fashioning an Austrian school of economics. In his rendering of the Austrian school, one finds a marriage between Friedrich Hayek's discourse with Ludwig von Mises's deductive, praxeological image of science of Ludwig von Mises - a marriage that...

The Fall 2010 issue of the Journal of Private Enterprise featured a complicated set of papers (link to the issue). The lead article was a long paper by Jason Briggeman and me, on Israel Kirzner’s work on coordination and discovery. The thrust of our paper was an affirmation of Kirzner’s...