The Preacher as Economist vs. "The Economist as Preacher"
Economics, Secularism, and Faith
Posted: Monday, June 2, 2008
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.  [Full Story]

Causes and Cures of "Demographic Winter"

Posted: Thursday, May 15, 2008
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.  [Full Story]

What Have We Learned About -- and From -- Wilhelm Röpke?

Posted: Wednesday, April 16, 2008
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.  [Full Story]

The Three World Views in Economics
Templeton Enterprise Awards Symposium
Posted: Thursday, April 10, 2008
There have been many economists, but only three basic theories of economics, which express three different world views.  [Full Story]

Family-Friendly Fiscal Policy to Weather "Demographic Winter"

Posted: Friday, May 11, 2007
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.  [Full Story]

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

Posted: Thursday, March 29, 2007
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?  [Full Story]

How Does Fiscal Policy Affect the American Worker?

Posted: Tuesday, July 25, 2006
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.  [Full Story]

Dismal Science

Posted: Thursday, April 6, 2006
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.   [Full Story]

The Economics of Loving Your Neighbor
Remarks at the Princeton panel discussion on Poverty, Social Responsibility, and Equality
Posted: Monday, March 6, 2006
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.  [Full Story]

Hey, Reagan Did That!
There's good precedent for President Bush's Social Security Commission.
Posted: Friday, February 3, 2006
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.  [Full Story]