Equality in the eyes of God and equality before the law are more important than material equality. First, equality moral and legal equality have led to what McCloskey (2006, 2010, 2016) calls the “Great Enrichment.” The enrichment has brought with it a global middle class and large...

Whether something is a “resource” emerges from its ability to satisfy wants, which in turn emerges from appropriation and exchange. Without taking an object out of the commons, assuming a right over it, and experimenting, we can't know how much is “enough, and as good.” Appropriation...

Recent historical works, most notably 2017's Democracy in Chains, claim that 1986 Nobel Laureate James M. Buchanan's formative contributions to political economy were inspired in significant part by hostility to Brown v. Board of Education. This argument suggests that the research agenda of...

Evidence suggests that foreign aid does not promote economic growth. Institutions which promote entrepreneurship do promote growth. Understanding where these institutions come from is paramount to success. This essay analyzes and summarizes theory and evidence regarding the relationship between...

For almost all of history, people were extremely poor. Beginning in the seventeenth century, European countries (and their overseas extensions) began to grow extremely wealthy. Since World War II, enrichment has spread around the world with the “Asian Tigers” of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan,...

Government structures are more bureaucratic (and their policies more redistributive) in the European Union than in the United States. The more 'statist' character of Europe is hardly a surprise given the leading role of France in the post-WWII integration of the continent. Economic freedom was...

James M. Buchanan’s 1969 book Cost and Choice speaks directly to the socialist calculation debate from the perspective of the “London Tradition” in the theory of cost. More than this, however, it places Buchanan alongside Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman as an exemplar of...