Economics Articles

Where Are the Best Schools in Austrian Economics?

July 1, 2001

Ideas On Liberty Economics on Trial July 2001 by Mark Skousen “We must raise and train an army of fighters for freedom.” —F. A. Hayek Frequently students or parents approach me at investment or economics conferences with the question, “Can you recommend an undergraduate or graduate program in free-market economics?” With the explosive interest in [...]

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Pulling Down the Keynesian Cross

June 1, 2001

Ideas On Liberty Economics on Trial June 2001 by Mark Skousen “The circle had come right round; it was as though Keynes had never been.” -Robert Skidelsky1 “Textbooks have to be rewritten in the aftermath of each scientific revolution.” -Thomas S. Kuhn2 In his third and final volume on John Maynard Keynes, Robert Skidelsky comes [...]

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Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?

June 1, 2001

Forecasts & Strategies Personal Snapshots June 2001 By Mark Skousen Governments are generally reluctant to admit mistakes and to change mistaken policies until much harm has been done. -P.T. Bauer and B.S. Yamey In Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?, a popular book in Egypt, author Galan Amin raises a good question. Thousands of years ago, [...]

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Beyond GDP: A Breakthrough in National Income Accounting

April 1, 2001

IDEAS ON LIBERTY Economics on Trial APRIL 2001 Beyond GDP: A Breakthrough in National Income Accounting by Mark Skousen “It is apparent that a large part of a country’s total production serves for the production of capital goods and not for the production of consumer goods, and that the production of capital goods must itself [...]

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The Troubled Economics of Ayn Rand

January 1, 2001

Published in January, 2001, issue of Liberty Magazine: THE TROUBLED ECONOMICS OF AYN RAND by Mark Skousen “No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers…” –Howard Roark, The Fountainhead (1994:710) Ayn Rand, author of the celebrated Capitalism: The Unknown Idea, is honored almost universally as the fountainhead of market capitalism, an impassioned [...]

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Is Alan Greenspan Really That Good?

January 1, 2001

Forecasts & Strategies Personal Snapshots January 2001 Is Alan Greenspan Really That Good? By Mark Skousen “He played the game, skillfully …. He helped breath life into the vision of America as strong, the best, invincible.” -Bob Woodward, Maestro: Greenspan’s Fed and the American Boom Last month I listened on audiotape to Bob Woodward’s new [...]

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The Imperial Science

January 1, 2001

Ideas on Liberty Economics on Trial January 2001 The Imperial Science by Mark Skousen “I think it is quite likely that we are entering an era of much more interaction among the sciences.” Kenneth E. Boulding 1 During the 20th century it was popular to label economics the “dismal science,” a term of derision coined [...]

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An Enemy Hath Done This

September 1, 2000

Economics on Trial – Ideas on Liberty – SEPTEMBER 2000 by Mark Skousen “Government measures . . . give individuals an incentive to misuse and misdirect resources and distort the investment of new savings.” – MILTON FRIEDMAN 1 Several months ago, I had the opportunity of speaking before a Miami chapter of Legatus, a group [...]

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If You Build It – Privately – They Will Come

August 26, 2000

Ideas on Liberty Economics on Trial August 2000 by Mark Skousen “Government provides certain indispensable public services without which community life would be unthinkable and which by their nature cannot appropriately be left to private enterprise.” – PAUL A. SAMUELSON If you take a course in public finance, you will invariably encounter the “public goods” [...]

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The Gap Between Rich and Poor Is…Narrowing!

April 30, 2000

Personal Snapshots FORECASTS & STRATEGIES April 2000 by Mark Skousen “The poor remain poor and the command of income by those in the top income brackets is increasing egregiously.” — John Kenneth Galbraith “The poor have not gotten poorer. The average family below the poverty line today is doing as well or better than middle-class [...]

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