Though I’m not a big fan of Hayek, the UK-based Institute of Economic Affairs asked me to deliver the 2019 Hayek Memorial Lecture. It’s a preview of my book-in-progress, Poverty: Who To Blame. It’s also an attempt to get people to pay comparable attention to all three parts of my book. At least until my IEA […]| Econlib
Does burning your money make you poor? Almost everyone responds, “Obviously.” And in a sense, it is obvious. If you take all your money and burn it, you’ll be hungry and homeless as a result. QED. In another sense, though, burning money might not change a thing. How so? Suppose if you don’t burn your […]| Econlib
The message of the “success sequence,” as recently explored by W. Bradford Wilcox and Wendy Wang in their report on Millennials’ family lives and economic status, is that your chances of economic stability are much higher if you finish high school, get a job, and marry before you start having kids. Of course, the data can only show that the people who do avoid or exit poverty are more likely to have these characteristics. Wilcox and Wang control for several obvious factors like race and...| Institute for Family Studies
