Austrian economists have traditionally argued against central planning on the grounds that much of the economically relevant knowledge in society could never be made available to a single planning authority. But today, with an unprecedented and ever increasing volume and variety of data now potentially accessible to the planner, it seems that an omniscient government may be possible after all. Has the big data revolution rendered the promarket arguments of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek obsolete?

Imagine creating a graduate school in economics today, from scratch. What would it look like?

For starters, it would be online, inexpensive, fast, flexible, and taught using the great treatises. It would stress economic history. It would be rigorous. It would focus on fundamentals. And critically, it would teach real economics from an Austrian perspective. In other words, nothing like traditional brick-and-mortar programs and their dreadful textbooks!

[This article is part of the Understanding Money Mechanics series, by Robert P. Murphy. The series will be published as a book in 2021.]

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Can Donald Trump, against all odds, still win in November? 

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Presidential candidate and former vice president Joseph Biden announced Kamala Harris as his running mate today. Harris is currently a US senator from California and the former attorney general for the state. Biden’s choice brings her back to the fore of the 2020 race after having dropped out as a presidential candidate in early December. 

Modern monetary theory, with origins both in chartalism and the “functional finance” doctrine of the 1940s, is the freshest left-progressive gambit to justify radically increased federal spending.