For most of its existence, mankind’s wellbeing was dictated by disease, the elements and other natural factors, and the occasional conflict. Virtually everything it needed — food, fuel, clothing, medicine, transport, mechanical power — was the direct or indirect product of living nature....

Few economists speak of talk in considering human interaction. Deirdre McCloskey is one who does. The paper considers what it means to take talk seriously, its connection to moral philosophy, and to innovation

Money throughout the world has been operating without a defined denominator. Currency names identify nationality but not value. Equal work time is now and has been the center line of gravity of currency exchange rates since the IMF began publishing the data to see it, since 1948. Adoption of an...

Is it true that the Catholic reaction to Protestantism—the Counter-Reformation—lead to scientific and economic decline for hundreds of years? Introducing biography-based evidence, I show that Catholic and Protestant European cities long shared comparable trends of scientists per capita. But...

To identify effects of science on growth in the long-term, we need a shock to science which is sufficiently persistent. Was the Counter-Reformation—the Catholic reaction to Protestantism—such a shock? Did it harm science, unintentionally but enduringly, and thereby depress economic growth,...

Economic development, which refers to the process of progressive transformation of an economy, is a multifaceted term without a universal definition. This article presents the constitutive elements of economic development, such as growth, distribution, and innovation. Economic development has...

Metaverse investor and writer Matthew Ball estimates the metaverse could be worth up to $30 trillion in the next decade (Knight, 2021). How “the Metaverse” is built and governed will determine societal outcomes in the near future and for generations to come. The Metaverse describes virtual...

Low-income economies are experiencing potential serious threats in terms of long-term sustainability and social development. At the same time, most developing economies are grappling with possible disruptions from the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the current COVID-19 pandemic and its...

This book offers a detailed account of how the Chinese real estate market actually operates in practice, from both legal and business perspectives. My goals are twofold. First, I seek to establish and describe how the Chinese real estate market, with so few written laws, actually functions. How...