The declining financial health of public pension systems is increasingly becoming a budget concern for many state and local governments. While the academic literature has identified several factors behind the growth in unfunded state and local public pension liabilities, there is mixed evidence...

Despite the widespread adoption and strict enforcement of balanced budget requirements, U.S. state and local governments have accumulated trillions in unfunded pension liabilities. While many casual factors for this growth in unfunded liabilities, including liberal discount rates and inadequate...

Many economists, including former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, believe that the gold standard generates poor economic outcomes including output volatility, price instability, financial panics, the spread of recessions via the exchange rate, and speculation-induced collapse. These problems,...

This paper explores James Buchanan's contributions to monetary economics and argues these contributions form the foundation of a robust monetary economics paradigm. While often not recognized for his contributions to monetary economics, Buchanan's scholarship offers important insights for...

There is a strong consensus among economists and public pension experts that many public pensions are substantially underfunded and that absent fundamental reform many state and local governments will have to resort to some mixture of tax increases, budget cuts, and/or bailouts. While many...

Can self-governance emerge in new and unfamiliar contexts, be restored following a sustained period of government control or provision, and exhibit resiliency in extreme disruption? Economic arguments for regulation, state provision of a good or service, and welfare state programs are often...

Can elites with access to governing institutions be constitutionally constrained? Effective constitutional constraints must be self-enforcing. This represents a substantial barrier to economic development, especially when elites control governing institutions. This paper analyzes how late Middle...

While the primary causes of the 2007-8 financial crisis are disputed, many economists hold that the monetary policy missteps played a role in causing or prolonging the financial crisis. In light of the perceived failure of monetary orthodoxy, monetary models are being theoretically refined and...

How has the impact of wars affected our historical understanding of U.S. economic performance? While most economists believe the Federal Reserve has improved performance, the existing literature fails to account for exogenous shocks such as periods of war. This paper compares U.S. economic...

Even notable free market scholars in the 20th Century lamented the inescapable decline in intimate social relations that would emerge from the wide-scale adoption of an extended market order. This paper challenges this view that markets erode social relations by challenging the concept that the...