Adam Smith included understanding and belonging among basic human needs. Humans have spiritual and material needs that they can satisfy through coordination and cooperation, both need communication. Religion and philosophy emerge when people communicate the explanations they have of their...

Although Gerolamo Boccardo did not contribute an original theory of crises in his own Dizionario della economia politica (1857) - he relied, in fact, on the one formulated a few years earlier by Charles Coquelin - he introduced some interesting innovations. In particular, he examined the...

In recent years, commentators have noticed that the European liberal order is 'under attack'. Traditional parties of the center are in decline. Populist movements of the right and the left have won elections or significant shares in parliaments. In the face of this 'new' crisis of liberalism,...

This paper looks to explore the effects of James Buchanan's book Cost and Choice since its publication. I discuss how Cost and Choice has had a limited impact on the treatment of welfare economics within Law & Economics. I then elaborate on Buchanan's discussion to highlight other issues within...

In recent years, commentators have noticed that the European liberal order is ‘under attack'. Traditional parties of the center are in decline. Populist movements of the right and the left have won elections or significant shares in parliaments. In the face of this ‘new' crisis of...

This paper honors Don Lavoie's work on the relationship between theory and history in Austrian economics by using the current recession as an example of many of the ideas found in his paper on the “Interpretive Dimension of Economics.” More specifically, I start from the premise that all...

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...

A neglected aspect of regional trade agreements (RTAs) is their protectionist potential. In times of a stagnating World Trade Organization (WTO), growing economic nationalism and skepticism about the merits of free trade and trade agreements, the paper examines to what extent recently signed...

Ireland on the eve of the Great Famine was a poor and backward economy. The Great Irish Famine of the 1840s is accordingly often considered the classic example of Malthusian population economics in action. However, unlike most historical famines, the Great Famine was not the product of a harvest...

David Ricardo indicated in his famous numerical example in the Principles that it would be advantageous to Portugal to import English cloth made by 100 men, although it could have been produced locally with the labor of only 90 Portuguese men. As the production of the cloth required less...