All Posts Tagged With: "economic development"

Protecting Property in a Post-Kelo World

Two years ago, when I began writing a book,
peoples eyes would glaze over when I told them
the subject was eminent domain, the power of
the government to take property by force on just
compensation to the owner. Rarely could I mention the
subject without having to explain it in detail, and
incredulity was a typical response to the realization that
government now takes property for private uses rather
than for the public uses allowed by the
Constitution.

1Nov2005 | | 0 comments | Continued

Immaculate Planners or Messy Entrepreneurs?

“We need help from government. We need to hire experts to pick winning companies, and then we can subsidize them to come and bring more jobs to our state.” From time to time, for almost two centuries, that has been the battle cry from states across the nation. Most recently, Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan [...]

1Sep2005 | | 0 comments | Continued

Offshore Prosperity

Quick—without reading the next paragraph of this article, name the five largest financial centers in the world. Answers: London,Tokyo, New York, Hong Kong, and the Cayman Islands. New York is the financial capital of one of the largest and wealthiest nations in the world; London, the former capital of a globe-spanning empire and still the [...]

1Sep2005 | | 4 comments | Continued

Economic Freedom: The Path to Development

Economic development has historically been exceptional rather than typical. As Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has observed in The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, capitalism has been successful mainly in the West. Consequently, there are tremendous income disparities around the world. In 2000, real income per person [...]

1Apr2005 | | 0 comments | Continued

Ludwig von Mises and the Vienna of His Time – Part II

From the time of World War I, Ludwig von Mises’s writings expressed the classical-liberal cosmopolitan conception of man, society, and freedom. Throughout the interwar period his works on the general principles of the liberal market order, the dangerous dead end to which socialist society would lead, and the contradictions and corrupting influences of economic interventionism [...]

1Apr2005 | | 0 comments | Continued

Detroit’s Flirtation with Economic Suicide

Until recently, I had thought the city of Detroit had done everything in its power to drive people and businesses away. I was wrong. From deep down in its barrel of apparently endless crackpot schemes, the Detroit city council pulled out one more. And what a piece of work it was—proof beyond the most shadowy [...]

1Mar2005 | | 1 comment | Continued

The Progressive Era’s Derailment of Classical-Liberal Evolution

Fred Smith is president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. It is true that where a considerable part of the costs incurred are external costs from the point of view of the acting individuals or firms, the economic calculation established by them is manifestly defective and their results deceptive. But this is not the outcome of [...]

1Jun2004 | | 3 comments | Continued

Globalization and Free Trade

Freedom of trade is really a very simple concept. Each individual should be at liberty to buy from and sell to whomever he wishes on mutually agreed-upon terms. Whether the partners to this trade live next door to each other or are separated by thousands of miles should make absolutely no difference to the logic [...]

1Apr2004 | | 6 comments | Continued

Westerns and Property Rights

Several new westerns opened at the box office last fall, including Kevin Costner’s Open Range, costarring Robert Duvall. The story was a familiar one, with a twist: Costner’s Charlie Waite and Duvall’s “Boss” Spearman are cowboys trailing a herd north through Montana Territory. They run afoul of a villainous cattle rancher who tries to deny [...]

1Mar2004 | | 3 comments | Continued

China’s Historic Error

Last time I wrote about the dynamic and innovative economy of Song China. Had China continued to develop as it did under that dynasty we would undoubtedly be talking now of “the Industrial Revolution of the fourteenth century.” However, this did not happen. Instead China gradually lost the dynamism and inventiveness that for so long [...]

1Oct2003 | | 1 comment | Continued

The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics

As this is being written, the television talking heads are imploring us “not to walk away” from Afghanistan and to “invest” billions there instead. Before buying into that idea, everyone should read this book by a former World Bank economist whose forthrightness has evidently cost him his job. Early on, Easterly makes the following observation [...]

16Mar2003 | | 0 comments | Continued

Unsustainable Development

Sound economic thinking lies in accounting for the secondary results of private and government actions.1 This observation is not limited to economics. It can be applied to all areas of human study, including political philosophy. Once learned, that lesson can prevent a great deal of human hardship. Take, for instance, a concept promoted by left-wing [...]

1Mar2003 | | 0 comments | Continued

How’s the Third World Doing?

The Third World is in trouble. Standards of living are plummeting, while the West is getting richer. Nearly everyone seems to believe it. The left wants to believe it as a justification for global socialism. Racists want to believe it because it “proves” the superiority of the white race. The media think it’s a good [...]

1Sep2002 | | 0 comments | Continued

Do Big Corporations Control America?

Since the mid-eighteenth century the development of market-based societies in America and elsewhere, with constitutional protections of property and freedom, has had startling effects. Well over 90 percent of the improvement in the material living standards of ordinary persons that has occurred in the 6,000 years of recorded human history has occurred in that last [...]

1Mar2002 | | 7 comments | Continued

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else

Taking things for granted isn’t always a bad idea. Anyone who checks the morning paper to see if the sun will rise in the east is wasting his time. But the role of property has been taken for granted, with awful results. Economics textbooks may discuss incentives to invest, but they seldom, if ever, make [...]

1Jan2002 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Wealth of Man by Peter Jay

Public Affairs · 2000 · 400 pages · $30.00 Reviewed by David L. Littmann Peter Jay’s The Wealth of Man is an attempt to trace the key episodes in man’s economic course, from the time of the hunter-gatherer to our day. He presents his narrative as a waltz: One energetic step forward, one defensive step [...]

1Nov2001 | | 0 comments | Continued

Beijing’s Cruel Choice

Christopher Lingle is visiting professor of economics in ESEADE at Universidad Francisco Marroquín. China, like other countries undergoing radical transition, must resolve the political and economic issues that determine its pattern of future development. The search for a workable model has often led to the conclusion that authoritarian rule may be a “necessary evil” as [...]

1Aug2001 | | 3 comments | Continued
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