Good Economic Theory Focuses on Explanation, Not Prediction
In order to establish the state of the economy, economists employ various theories. Yet what are the criteria for how they decide whether the theory employed is helpful in ascertaining …
Mises Wire
How Unions Reduce Real Wages
[Chapter 13 of The Conquest of Poverty.] For more than a century the economic thinking not only of the public but of the majority of economists has been dominated by …
Chile’s Economic Model Is a Success Story in Crisis-Prone South America
The root causes of Chile’s ongoing protests are still being hotly debated. The conventional narrative is that a metro fare hike of 3.75 percent kicked off the demonstrations. However, there …
Mark Packard on the Value Learning Process
To be able to adopt new ideas and successfully apply new techniques, it is sometimes necessary to discard old ones that are barriers to clear thinking. The theory and vocabulary …
How Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Are Channeling Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez
A decade ago, Democrat politicians and their cultural and academic allies were singing the praises of Hugo Chávez and his “economic miracle” in Venezuela. From Bernie Sanders to Salon, to …
Where’s the Inflation? It’s in Stocks, Real Estate, and Higher Ed
In my days before I worked for the Mises Institute, I had a colleague who knew I associated with Austrian-School economists. In the wake of the bailouts and quantitative easing …
The Disaster of Zimbabwe’s Price Controls
Prices are essential signals for coordinating the distribution of goods in an economy. Prices tell us where scarce resources are most needed. F. A. Hayek’s insights on this have been …
The Economic Consequences of the Peace: 100 Years Later
Introduction December 12, 2019 is the hundred-year anniversary of The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes. This work has been described as “one of the most influential …
Hyperinflation, Money Demand, and the Crack-up Boom
In the early 1920s, Ludwig von Mises became a witness to hyperinflation in Austria and Germany — monetary developments that caused irreparable and (in the German case) cataclysmic damage to …
Medicare and Medicaid Destroyed Healthcare
In a December 1 article entitled “Yes, Americans are Feeling the Squeeze. It’s Coming from Health Care,” Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson points out that “In the early 1960s, before …