Are American workers becoming more productive? It would be nice to know, but it is a difficult question to answer. Notwithstanding pretensions to scientific accuracy, the data used to measure productivity are unreliable. According to a recent announcement by the US Labor Department, workers productivity in the non-farm sector increased at an
According to the efficient markets hypothesis, stock market prices move in response to new, unexpected information. Since, by definition the unexpected cannot be known, it implies that an individual’s chances of anticipating the general direction of the market are as good as anyone else’s chances. It is thus suggested that since the future
To gain an insight into the economic future, many economists follow a variety of consumer and business surveys. In these surveys, randomly selected consumers and businessmen are asked to provide their views about where the economy is heading. If a survey shows that the majority are optimistic, this is supposed to be good news for the economy.
A crucial part of a national political campaign involves enlisting economists to endorse the candidates’ plan. Every four years, statements are circulated by the campaigns and economists are urged to sign up. Mises Institute adjunct scholar Mark Thornton, though certainly not a supporter of Gore, would not, as a matter of principle, sign the Bush
The Supreme Court has declined to put the antitrust case against Microsoft on fast track, decreasing the chances that the lower court and the antitrust division of the Justice Department will succeed in their efforts to break the company into two parts. To understand why this is a victory for consumers, consider a case 50 years ago when the
What are the economic effects of market dominance by one firm? To hear the Justice Department tell it, market dominance spells disaster. A market-share monopoly must be supplanted by a competitive environment imposed by the government. This view is shared by the man-on-the-street, who also fears the “market power” of a single provider of a good or
The Free Market 18, no. 1 (January 2000) A strong economy is the mortal enemy of the welfare bureaucracy. If Americans are productive and prospering, who needs all those welfare bureaucrats? So, to eliminate the threat of diminished funding of its pay, privileges, and perks, the Washington welfare bureaucracy, led by President Clinton, is
The Free Market 18, no. 1 (January 2000) From the 1930s through the 1980s , government claimed it could innovate better than private markets. That’s what the boondoggles like TVA, Nasa , and Semitech were all about. Hardly anyone believes that anymore, so the rationale for government regulation of technology has changed. It now concerns such
The Free Market 18, no. 1 (January 2000) A common misconception in popular thinking about business is that companies need to be helped along and supported by government. If a community fails to help business, it is said, it will miss out on jobs and prosperity. We see this happening across the country. Cities use public funds to build sports
The Free Market 18, no. 1 (January 2000) Jean-Claude Castex is surrounded by miracles, or at least the quest for miracles. As the official feutier, or tender of religious candles, at Lourdes, the spot in France where the Virgin Mary appeared in a grotto to a poor miller’s daughter in the nineteenth century, Castex sees, on average, some 14,000
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.