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How Do Nations Choose "Demographic Winter"? Is America Doing So?

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EST

The recipe for "demographic winter" throughout Europe and Asia has been the same combination of legal abortion and high health-care and other social benefits now advocated by President Barack Obama and a majority in Congress.

Review of "Calculated Futures: Theology, Ethics, and Economics"

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EST

In Calculated Futures, economist Nancy Fox writes, "Both theologians and neoclassical economists appear to agree that the market is the best way for an economic system to achieve efficiency." She adds, "Possibly the most significant source of conflict is the sheer ignorance of one discipline of the other." Actually, as this book confirms, the biggest problem is each discipline's ignorance of its own history.

Infant Industry: The Past and Future of the American System

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EST

A single coherent tradition links all economically and politically successful American economic policy from George Washington through Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. Tracing its origins and development helps us understand why the success of the American experiment at first critically depended -- and depends now in a more literal sense-on promoting the nation's ‘infant industry.'

Elements of Economic Theory and American Political Economy

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EST

Economic theory began in the natural law philosophy with elements from Aristotle and Augustine, first integrated by Thomas Aquinas, which were widely disseminated by "Protestant scholastics" like Samuel Pufendorf, and further developed by the American Founders.

A Return to Augustinian Economics

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EST

Pope Benedict XVI has called that neglected economic realist St. Augustine "my great master." Because Augustine placed the fact of scarcity squarely at the center of moral decision-making, Catholic claims from the left (and fears from the right) that the encyclical Caritas in Veritate portends some utopian global political scheme or endorsement of President Obama’s economic policies are likely to prove equally unfounded.

Restoring Economic Orthodoxy

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 EST

The views of Christian economists are often classed (as in our panel) as "heterodox." My paper argues instead that in coming decades "neoscholastic" economists building on the original scholastic foundation will prevail over today"s "neoclassical" economists for the same reason the latter supplanted "classical" economists starting in the 1870s: having one more necessary element of theory, they are more orthodox in the strict sense of having "right opinion"--a theory both more complete and empirically accurate.

Go Forward to Gold

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EST

Backing other currencies with the dollar was supposed to provide stability. Instead it brought the reserve currency curse.

The Preacher as Economist vs. "The Economist as Preacher"

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST

The Economist as Preacher was the title of a book by George J. Stigler, who was most responsible for "Smythology": the myth that Adam Smith invented or is indispensable to understanding economics. "The Preacher as Economist" is Thomas Aquinas, who integrated the outline of economic theory taught for five centuries by Catholics and Protestants alike. More broadly, they propose two different ways of understanding what it means to be an economist -- and for that matter, what it means to be a preacher.

Causes and Cures of "Demographic Winter"

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 EST

The new film Demographic Winter performs a national service by outlining the biggest social, economic and strategic challenge that the United States will face in coming decades. However, it also makes the problem seem overly complex and ends without offering hope of solutions. I’d like to share with you a simpler and somewhat more hopeful analysis.

What Have We Learned About -- and From -- Wilhelm R�pke?

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST

Unlike his libertarian friends Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek, Wilhelm Röpke had a genuine economic theory of the family, and understood that our most fundamental scale of preferences is for persons, not things.

The Three World Views in Economics

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST

There have been many economists, but only three basic theories of economics, which express three different world views.

What Should Be A Culture Of Enterprise In An Age of Globalization?

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST

The Templeton Enterprise Awards are granted annually to the best books and articles written by scholars under forty years of age in humane economics and culture. EPPC and ISI will host a presentation by the winners for 2007 in both the book and article category. A continental breakfast and lunch will be served.

Family-Friendly Fiscal Policy to Weather "Demographic Winter"

Fri, 11 May 2007 00:00:00 EST

While the birth rate has fallen below the replacement rate in most of developed Europe and Asia it has hovered near the replacement rate in the United States. In order to avoid a "demographic winter" fiscal policy must be reformed to become more family-friendly.

What Should Be a Culture of Enterprise in an Age of Globalization?

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 00:00:00 EST

The Intercollegiate Studies and Cato Institutes deserve our thanks for this conference posing the question, "What Should Be a Culture of Enterprise in an Age of Globalization?" But I think we must start with a prior question: Isn’t "culture of enterprise" really an oxymoron?

How Does Fiscal Policy Affect the American Worker?

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EST

American policymakers have begun preparing the public for fiscal policy changes, such as comprehensive reforms of the Federal income tax, Social Security, and Medicare systems that would profoundly affect the lives of American workers and their families. It is generally agreed that projected fiscal imbalances are unsustainable. Moreover, a chorus of analysts across the political spectrum has warned that the United States is on the brink of exactly the same demographic black hole that already has started to swallow Europe and Japan, characterized by falling fertility, chronic unemployment, and overstrained budgets.

Dismal Science

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:00:00 EST

Freakonomics asks all kinds of interesting questions but, like modern economics generally, is ill-equipped to provide the right answers to those involving gifts or crimes. Its authors famously -- but wrongly -- claim, for example, that legalizing abortion lowered homicide rates 15-20 years later by eliminating infants who would have become murderers. In fact, it raised the homicide rate almost at once by turning their fathers back into men without dependent children. Freakonomics relies on the "economic approach to human behavior," which blinds it to the near-perfect trade-off between homicide and economic fatherhood -- something easily observed by economists using the original "human approach to economic behavior" of Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas.

The Economics of Loving Your Neighbor

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 00:00:00 EST

I’d like, first, to explain why modern economic theory has difficulty describing our topic; second, try to outline what "loving your neighbor as yourself" means in economic terms and the basic principles for doing so at the personal and political levels; and finally, to suggest how America can meet its biggest economic challenge in coming decades: to avoid repeating Europe’s mistakes, reflected in falling fertility and rising unemployment, as the result of misunderstanding those principles.

Hey, Reagan Did That!

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 00:00:00 EST

President Bush’s proposal is the most practical step possible to cool the overheated partisan debate, break the congressional logjam, and in 2007 -- if it follows the timetable of President Ronald Reagan’s similar commission -- deal with the three biggest long-term problems facing American families in decades.

Tax Americana

Mon, 14 Nov 2005 00:00:00 EST

The final report of President Bush’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform reveals a Republican party shell-shocked by the hostile reception to its Social Security reform plans and deeply ambivalent about the direction to take on tax policy. The underlying drama, rarely acknowledged, is whether the party should move away from Ronald Reagan’s approach to these issues.

Social Security Endgame

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 00:00:00 EST

Even those who voted for President Bush must concede that "erupting in political flames" aptly describes the Social Security initiative. Yet if President Bush squandered "political capital," the Democrats didnt gain any. The main danger now is that the two parties "decide not to decide": to find an "exit strategy," and "walk away from the table," as Fred Barnes and E.J. Dionne began urging their parties months ago. To do so would be to follow Europe and Japan in commmitting national suicide.