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Illustration of Economists in Different Positions in the Government

May God Save Us From Economists

Over the last half-century, economics has infiltrated parts of the federal government where it has no business intruding.
by Timothy Noah via The New Republic on October 25, 2022
Residential Security map of central Chicago, sourced from "Mapping Inequality"

How Academia Laid the Groundwork for Redlining

The connections between private industry and government were much more fluid than was previously imagined.
by LaDale Winling, Todd Michney via Platform on November 1, 2021
Collage-style design of Milton Friedman and his work

The End of Friedmanomics

The famed economist’s theories were embraced by Beltway power brokers in both parties. Finally, a Democratic president is turning the page on a legacy of ruin.
by Zachary D. Carter via The New Republic on June 17, 2021
President Truman with Sadie Alexander and the Committee on Civil Rights.
partner

The Ideas of the First Black Economics PhD Offer Solutions to Our Problems Today

Full employment could solve job discrimination and inadequate wages.
by Nina Banks via Made By History on June 15, 2021
Robert Mundell receives the Nobel Prize in economics from Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf, in 1999.

Remembering the Father of Supply-Side Economics

Robert Mundell’s theories spawned decades of economic debate and still matter to the big ideas of today.
by Bruce Bartlett via The New Republic on April 7, 2021
Photo of United States bill, saying "In God We Trust."

The Deep Religious Roots of American Economics

Any attempt to understand the complexities of American economic thought without considering the significant role of religious beliefs is incomplete.
by Benjamin M. Friedman via The MIT Press Reader on September 5, 2024
Scale with hundred-dollar bills weighing down one side.

Markets and the Law

Neoliberalism isn’t just a set of economic precepts—it’s also an architecture of laws passed to reinforce those precepts. Those laws must be changed.
by Amy Kapczynski via Democracy Journal on June 24, 2024
A West Village, New York pizza restaurant.

What Should Econ 101 Courses Teach Students Today?

Why introductory economics courses continued to teach zombie ideas from before economics became an empirical discipline.
by Walter Frick via Aeon on June 7, 2024
Branko Milanovic, 2017.

The Problematic Past, Present, and Future of Inequality Studies

An intellectual history of inequality in economic theory reveals the ideological reasons behind the field’s resurgence in the last few decades.
by Branko Milanović, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via The Nation on March 20, 2024

The Deep and Enduring History of Universal Basic Income

While the concept stretches back centuries, it has garnered significant attention in recent decades.
by Karl Widerquist via The MIT Press Reader on March 7, 2024
Economist Milton Friedman poses next to a bust sculpture of himself

The Century of Milton Friedman

An interview with Jennifer Burns on her authoritative new biography of the American economist and the personal and intellectual origins of his theories.
by Jennifer Burns, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via The Nation on February 5, 2024
Milton Friedman.

Milton Friedman, the Prizefighter

The economist’s lifelong pugilism wasn’t in spite of his success—it may have been the key to it.
by Krithika Varagur via The New Yorker on January 12, 2024
Collage depicting shipping containers, a scale weighing American dollars, and a screen of numbers and percentages

Free Trade's Origin Myth

American elites accepted the economic theory of "comparative advantage" mainly because it justified their geopolitical agenda.
by Oren Cass via Law & Liberty on January 2, 2024
Tank on the street of Santiago, Chile.

How Pinochet's Chile Became a Laboratory for Neoliberalism

The Chicago Boys and the tragedy of the Chilean coup.
by Vincent Bevins via The Nation on November 14, 2023
Friedrich Hayek listens to the president of the Centro de Estudios Públicos in Chile, Jorge Cauas, speak in April 1981.

Neoliberal Economists Like Milton Friedman Cheered on Augusto Pinochet’s Dictatorship

Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman helped devise Pinochet's economic agenda and endorsed the brutal repression that was needed to force it through.
by Jessica Whyte via Jacobin on September 11, 2023
Axe chopping down columns

The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism

The free market used to be touted as the cure for all our problems; now it’s taken to be the cause of them.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on July 17, 2023
Adam Smith (left), George Stigler (center), Milton Friedman (right), Hyde Park streetscape in the background.

The Localist

Why did Chicago become the headquarters of free market fundamentalism? Adam Smith offers a clue.
by Jonathan Levy via Boston Review on June 28, 2023
American flag sign that reads "NWRO," "I support a guaranteed adequate income for all Americans"

Escape from the Market

Far from spelling the end of anti-market politics, basic income proposals are one place where it can and has flourished.
by Simon Torracinta via Boston Review on May 19, 2023
Agosto Pinochet and Milton Friedman edited to appear as two sides of the same coin.

When Milton Friedman Met Pinochet

Chicago economists had free rein in Chile. The country is still recovering.
by Patrick Iber via The New Republic on May 15, 2023
A shattered painting of Adam Smith.

The Betrayal of Adam Smith

How conservatives made him their icon and distorted his ideas.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via The New Republic on February 27, 2023
Luigi Einauldi, present of Italy in 1948, seated at his desk

The Dawn of Austerity

An interview with the author of "The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism."
by Nick Serpe, Clara Mattei via Dissent on February 17, 2023
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker in front of a red arrow made of money pointing upwards.

The Messy True Story of the Last Time We Beat Inflation

The usual narrative about the "Volcker shock" leaves a lot out — and policymakers risk learning the wrong lessons.
by Alex Yablon via Vox on November 2, 2022
Image of Jerome Powell speaking at a conference.

Vectors of Inflation

Inflation hawks and inflation doves alike have learned the wrong lessons from the monetary policies of Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan.
by Radhika Desai via New Left Review on October 6, 2022
FDR signing a bill into law.

On Economics And Democracy

High unemployment is extremely dangerous.
by Zachary D. Carter via In The Long Run on July 29, 2022
Graph of immigrants showing a peak of western/Northern Europe in 1860, a peak of southern/Eastern Europe in 1910, and a peak of all other locations ca. 2018.

Today’s Newcomers Succeed Just As Quickly As Ellis Island Immigrants

Using records digitized in part by amateur genealogists, economists have upended conventional wisdom about which immigrants succeed and why.
by Andrew Van Dam via Washington Post on July 1, 2022
A line of cars waiting their turn at a filling station in Portland, Oregon, 1973.

The Price of Oil

The history of control and decontrol in the oil market.
by Gregory Brew via Phenomenal World on May 25, 2022
Collage of the U.S. Capitol, a factory, and the earth, connected by coins and price tag stickers.

How the Oil Industry Cast Climate Policy as an Economic Burden

For 30 years, the debate has largely ignored the soaring costs of inaction.
by Kate Yoder via Grist on April 7, 2022
Woodcut illustration from 1934 economics textbook depicting people walking from tenement houses past an advertising billboard and straight to a loan office.

Bad Economics

How microeconomic reasoning took over the very institutions of American governance.
by Simon Torracinta via Boston Review on March 9, 2022
Reprint from the September 1966 issue of AFL-CIO American Federationist, Box 38, Folder 4, William Page Keeton Papers, Special Collections, Tarlton Law Library, The University of Texas at Austin.

Controlled Prices

Before the rise of macroeconomics that accompanied World War II, price determination was a central problem of economic thought.
by Andrew Yamakawa Elrod via Phenomenal World on January 12, 2022
Alan Krueger speaks during a press briefing at the White House.

Tragedy Kept Alan Krueger From Claiming a Nobel Prize, but He’s Not Forgotten

The economist, along with David Card, was instrumental in changing America’s mind about the minimum wage.
by Timothy Noah via The New Republic on October 14, 2021
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