Private toll roads shaped and accommodated trade and migration routes, leaving social and political imprints on the communities that debated and supported them. Private road building came and went in waves throughout the 19th century and across the country. All told, between 2,500 and 3,200...

Israel Kirzner has been one of the leaders in fashioning an Austrian school of economics. In his rendering of the Austrian school, one finds a marriage between Friedrich Hayek's discourse with Ludwig von Mises's deductive, praxeological image of science of Ludwig von Mises - a marriage that...

Adam Smith's moral theory considered a number of sources of moral approval and at each turn he invoked an accompanying spectator, however sketchy. In judging an action, at each turn we consult our sympathy with a spectator that is natural or proper to the occasion. In this paper I suggest that...

In Smith there is something of a contrariety, or double doctrine, on justice: Much of his writing leaves us with the impression that we should use justice and its cognates to mean commutative justice, and only that. But much also authorizes the conclusion that we should embrace and talk of three...

The amended Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act requires efficacy certification for a drug's initial uses ("on-label"), but does not require certification before physicians may prescribe the drug for subsequent uses ("off-label"). Does it make sense to require FDA efficacy certification for new drugs...

"In economics, considerations of liberty are generally regarded as a secondary question of 'policy implications' and a matter of mere opinion. This essay rejects the relegation of liberty to such a status. It argues that the distinction between voluntary and coercive action, rooted in concepts...

People often suppose or imply that free-market economists constitute a significant portion of all economists. We surveyed American Economic Association members and asked their views on 18 specific forms of government activism. We find that about 8 percent of AEA members can be considered...

"The idea of spontaneous order is here exposited by analogy with roller skating at a roller rink. In the roller rink and in the economy, the key ingredient of spontaneous order is coincidence of interest. This makes the beneficial outcome possible. Central planning is bound to fail if for no...