Abba Lerner was the milton friedman of the left. Like Friedman, Lerner was a brilliant expositor of economics who was able to make complex concepts crystal clear. Lerner was also an unusual kind of socialist: he hated government power over people’s lives. Like Friedman, he praised private enterprise on the ground that “alternatives to government […]| Econlib
The United States and all other modern industrial economies experience significant swings in economic activity. In some years, most industries are booming and unemployment is low; in other years, most industries are operating well below capacity and unemployment is high. Periods of economic prosperity are typically called expansions or booms; periods of economic decline are […]| Econlib
Although labor unions have been celebrated in folk songs and stories as fearless champions of the downtrodden working man, this is not how economists see them. Economists who study unions—including some who are avowedly prounion—analyze them as cartels that raise wages above competitive levels by restricting the supply of labor to various firms and industries. […]| Econlib
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But […]| Econlib
Years later, the extraordinary cost of the 1980s S&L crisis still astounds many taxpayers, depositors, and policymakers. The cost of bailing out the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC), which insured the deposits in failed S&Ls, may eventually exceed $160 billion. At the end of 2004, the direct cost of the S&L crisis to […]| Econlib
Milton Friedman was the twentieth century’s most prominent advocate of free markets. Born in 1912 to Jewish immigrants in New York City, he attended Rutgers University, where he earned his B.A. at the age of twenty. He went on to earn his M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1933 and his Ph.D. from […]| Econlib
Paul Volcker, while chairman of the Board of Governors of the federal reserve system (1979–1987), was often called the second most powerful person in the United States. Volcker and company triggered the “double-dip” recessions of 1980 and 1981–1982, vanquishing the double-digit inflation of 1979–1980 and bringing the unemployment rate into double digits for the first […]| Econlib
Irving Fisher was one of America’s greatest mathematical economists and one of the clearest economics writers of all time. He had the intellect to use mathematics in virtually all his theories and the good sense to introduce it only after he had clearly explained the central principles in words. And he explained very well. […]| Econlib
Few economic indicators are of more concern to Americans than unemployment statistics. Reports that unemployment rates are dropping make us happy; reports to the contrary make us anxious. But just what do unemployment figures tell us? Are they reliable measures? What influences joblessness? How Is Unemployment Defined and Measured? Each month, the federal government’s Bureau […]| Econlib
The growth of productivity—output per unit of input—is the fundamental determinant of the growth of a country’s material standard of living. The most commonly cited measures are output per worker and output per hour—measures of labor productivity. One cannot have sustained growth in output per person—the most general measure of a country’s material standard of […]| Econlib
