The idea that all types of economic freedom - including limited government - promote prosperity is challenged by the fact that some countries successfully combine a large public sector with high taxes and otherwise high levels of economic freedom. To explain the co-existence of economic freedom...

In “The Soul of Classical Liberalism” (2000), James Buchanan argues that modern advocates of the liberal order must move beyond the mid-20th century project of “saving the books” and “saving the ideas” and instead embrace the challenge of “saving the soul” of liberalism. The...

The recent east Asian crisis has lead to calls for a new international financial architecture. This paper investigates the crisis in terms of a "grabbing hand" theory of the state. Results indicate that those economies that chose not to have floating exchange rates and chose to have...

Do political regime and freedom have a significant effect on economic growth? This paper tries to maintain differences in three political regimes viz. autocracies, bureaucracies and democracies and examines whether these regimes have different features overall and within specific continents in...

Freedom of movement is one of the great issues of our time. Expanding opportunities for both international and internal migration can greatly expand freedom and opportunity for hundreds of millions of people. The same goes for expanding freedom of choice in the private sector. “Voting with...

Ballot box voting is often considered the essence of political freedom. But it has two major shortcomings: individual voters have little chance of making a difference, and they also face strong incentives to remain ignorant about the issues at stake. "Voting with your feet," however, avoids both...

This is a revised and expanded version of an autobiographical essay contributed to the volume "I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians" (ed., Walter Block, 2010), collecting autobiographical notes from classical liberal / libertarian academics within economics, political...

In this paper, the author analyzes Friedman's dogmatic approach towards freedom (part 2), his misuse of historical examples (part 3), and his tautological definition of freedom (part 4). In fairness to Friedman, however, this paper concludes by explaining why any attempt to define freedom is...