Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist and journalist. One of his classic works is The Candlemakers' Petition, which uses the reductio ad absurdum philosophical technique to dismantle the arguments the French protectionists put forth to protect French industry in the mid-nineteenth...

This paper provides an overview and discussion of the legal and economic philosophy of Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), a French political economist. A bibliography with links to other Bastiat studies is also included

Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) was an economist and journalist. A member of the French Liberal School, he is best known for his free trade ideas and his philosophy of law. Mark Blaug ranks him as one of the 100 greatest economists before Keynes. Schumpeter called him a brilliant economic...

Keynes is back. President Obama's economic stimulus package is based on the premise that we can spend our way out of recession. It is an application of the Keynesian multiplier theory, which was expounded in Keynes' 1936 economic treatise, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money....

The Obama stimulus package has been less than a total success if one is to compare what was predicted to what has been delivered to date. The crux of the problem is that the economic planners have ignored or failed to take into account the secondary effects that increased government spending has...

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a journalist and economic theorist within the French liberal school. He is best known for his writings on free trade and protectionism. Although he has written several classic short treatises, his work has been ignored by most modern economists. This paper will...

The General Welfare Clause of the United States Constitution grants authority to the federal government to expend funds that provide for the general welfare. If one were to apply utilitarian economic theory to the General Welfare Clause, one might reasonably conclude that the government only has...

Political risk represents an important hidden transaction cost that reduces international trade. This paper investigates the claim that German public export credit guarantees (Hermes guarantees) mitigate this friction to trade flows and hence promote exports. We employ an empirical trade gravity...

Political risk represents an important hidden transaction cost that reduces international trade. This paper investigates the claim that German public export credit guarantees (Hermes guarantees) mitigate this friction to trade flows and hence promote exports. We employ an empirical trade gravity...

Launch Aid has crucially facilitated civil aerospace product development efforts in the UK. Currently Launch Aid figures centrally in the charged international dispute over civil aerospace subsidies, in which it has been characterized variously as an instrument of infant industry policy,...