Is capitalism a necessary condition for political freedom? Friedrich Hayek argued that capitalism is necessary for political freedom in what is now known as the Hayek-Friedman Hypothesis. While previous empirical work using economic freedom as a proxy for capitalism has somewhat confirmed the...

Contemporary monetary institutions are flawed at a foundational level. The reigning paradigm in monetary policy holds up constrained discretion as the preferred operating framework for central banks. But no matter how smart or well-intentioned are central bankers, discretionary policy contains...

Public pensions in the United States face an impending funding crisis in the wake of the financial crisis and the COVID-19 recession. Many cities and states will struggle to meet these growing obligations without major cuts in government services, reneging on pension promises, or raising taxes....

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...

Classical economists since the days of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers held that one of the primary arguments for capitalism, in addition to its superior economic efficiency and its grounding in robust political economy, was its civilizing role. They recognized that commerce channels...

Is a monopolized banking sector a threat to democracy? While Oskar Lange and Abba Lerner (1944) recognized that socialism was a threat to democracy, they also held that a tendency towards banking sector monopolization under capitalism would undermine democracy through the inevitable...

In the midst of the current financial crisis the economics profession has seen a monumental resurrection of Keynesian ideas. The debate, which Keynes started back in the 1930s, is being picked up again, not where it left off, but in exactly the same place it started. While Keynesian theories...