Friedrich Hayek on Industrial Organization, Competition, and Monopoly
One of the treats of the recent Liberty Fund colloquium on the Austrian and Chicago schools of thought was getting to read or reread various excerpts from Friedrich Hayek’s work. In a chapter titled “Government Policy and the Market” from his 1982 book Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Volume 3, Hayek nicely puts perfect competition in […]
Industrial Policy Does Indeed Fall Victim to the Knowledge Problem
In a recent paper published by the Heritage Foundation, frequent AIER contributor Alexander William Salter argues that industrial policy, of the sort that is advocated by Oren Cass and other of today’s national conservatives, is not properly subject to the criticism that this policy will fail because it cannot solve “the knowledge problem.” This policy […]
The Non-Profit Industrial Complex Helps Keep the Student Loan Debt Crisis Going
In some of the latest news on the student loan debt crisis, the pause in federal student loan payments that has been in effect since March 2020 may soon come to an end, and Senator Elizabeth Warren is out with another one of her famous plans that would attempt to make the peonage a bit […]
The return of industrial policies
During the latter part of the 20th century and the early 21st century, a consensus emerged that industrial polices were counterproductive. This view was a part of what was known as the “Washington Consensus”. Unfortunately, economics goes through cycles as one fad after another becomes fashionable, at least until society painfully relearns the fundamental principles […]
How Russia dodges oil sanctions on an industrial scale
In the year since the war in Ukraine began, once-dominant Western firms have pulled back from trading, shipping and insuring Russian oil. In their place, mysterious newcomers have begun to help sell the country’s crude. They are based not in Geneva, but in Hong Kong or Dubai. Many have never dealt in the stuff before. […]