The idea of measuring scientific relevance by counting citations is gaining ever-growing consensus among economists, and thanks to the electronic bibliographic resources now available the procedure has become relatively simple and fast. However, when it comes to putting the idea into practice...

This paper provides an introduction to the special issue on international lending of last resort. Starting from debates about rescue operations and unconventional policies of major central banks in the contexts of the Global Financial Crisis and the European Debt Crisis, it draws attention to...

Globalization disrupted the seemingly solid construction emerged in the aftermath of WW II, called the international trade system. For over fifty years, the system grew constantly thanks to the increasing number of countries that joint it as well as to its ubiquitously-accepted rules. For better...

Twenty-five years ago Richard Epstein published Simple Rules for a Complex World, which would go on to become one of Epstein's most influential works. This essay, prepared for a conference and symposium to celebrate the anniversary of the book, applies the insights of Simple Rules in the context...

This paper provides a comparative analysis of the Great Depression (1929-1933) and the Great Financial Crisis (2007-2009) by contrasting the crises' main driving forces and how they relate to each other with respect to the United States. To this end, causes, consequences and measures undertaken...

The authors highlight under-appreciated problems with implementing a Basic Income Policy, even in the case of simple cash transfers which, given the existence of redistribution, are preferable to the bureaucratic machinery necessary for rationing specific goods

The basic idea of an institution (formal and/or informal) may be conceived as an aggregate structure that has an influence on the individuals. Entrepreneurship is observed to be dependent on institutions for its performance. Constraining and enabling functions of institutions impose certain...

n the midst of the current financial crisis the economics profession has seen a monumental resurrection of Keynesian ideas. The debate, which Keynes started back in the 1930s, is being picked up again, not where it left off, but in exactly the same place it started. While Keynesian theories were...

The success of bitcoin as a medium of exchange poses a problem for the traditional Austrian view on the emergence of money. In particular, it casts doubt on the regression theorem of Ludwig von Mises, which implies that an item cannot gain acceptance as a medium of exchange without government...