Economic Theory

The recent alteration of the global geopolitical environment has brought into stark reality the weaknesses of long-running economic shifts (and proactive actions) that have favoured China—giving it market dominance and trade leverage throughout industries and supply chains. The future is going to be anything but certain, and Australia, the United States and their allies must be prepared.

Economics is about more than the economy. It also intersects public and private institutions, culture, religion, morality, and politics. Rob and Jackie explored these subjects with Benjamin Friedman, a professor of Political Economy at Harvard and author of The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth and Religion and the Rise of Capitalism.

From the founding of the republic to the turn of the millennium, America’s core economic creed was growth. But the new prevailing wisdom forswears growth for the sake of other goals: saving the planet, redistributing income, living simply, and the like.

Robert Atkinson participates in an expert panel discussion on “The Politicization of Business: What Gives” as part of a Cato conference—“New Challenges to the Free Economy (from Left and Right)”—that brings together leading economists and policymakers to discuss the ascendant political threats of progressivism and national conservatism to the free economy.

Rob and Jackie sat down with Stefan Link, Associate Professor of History at Dartmouth University, to discuss Henry Ford and his “open door policy” regarding methods and engineering.

Catherine Rampell’s recent Washington Post column parrots conventional “inside the beltway” wisdom about U.S. manufacturing but demonstrates that pundits often don’t understand real economics.

If a country is running a deficit, the value of its currency should fall to make imports more expensive and exports cheaper. Conversely, if a country is running a trade surplus, the currency should rise in value.

James Besson’s analysis of the role of information technology in the new economy is an interesting one and worth reading.

Not only is more aggressive antitrust enforcement likely to be ineffective at combatting inflation, some economists have argued that it may even make inflation worse.

The best way to regulate competition and enforce antitrust to prevent anticompetitive conduct remains the judicial process: Judge-made law better preserves adherence to the rule of reason, efficiency considerations, and, more generally, to the rule of law, which provides greater legal certainty. In other words, the enforcement of antitrust laws ought to remain predominantly dynamic, using the evolutionary process of the court system.