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Art Carden

Four Ways to Get What You Want

This essay was originally published at the American Institute for Economic Research. How can you get what you want? Years ago, Clarence Carson pointed out that fundamentally, there are four ways, and Paul Cleveland and I explored this in a 2010 article in The Freeman. They are worth revisiting: You

#FreeBookFriday: More "Mere Economics" Sources

Economic Freedom of the World: 2023 Annual Report. Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson. It's kind of wild that this is available online, gratis. It's a book-length elaboration on Frederic Bastiat's "What is Seen and What is Not Seen." Paul Heyne, Are

Vernon Smith Reading Suggestions

2002 Nobel laureate Vernon Smith is visiting Samford today. If you want to get started understanding Dr. Smith and his work, Adam Smith's Theory of Society (forthcoming from Palgrave Macmillan). I'm excited about this book. A student sent me a link to the talk below, which

The Samaritan's Dilemma in the Caritapolis

Here's a new Mere Economics-adjacent paper, "The Samaritan's Dilemma in the Caritapolis," that I wrote for an Independent Review symposium on James M. Buchanan's "The Samaritan's Dilemma." The abstract: James M. Buchanan's "The Samaritan'

#FreeBookFriday: W.H. Hutt Edition

I've written a bunch of papers on W.H. Hutt that you can find on my SSRN page. I don't know that I would have read much Hutt had the Ludwig von Mises Institute not made a lot of his books available gratis. Here is what

#FreeBookFriday: Some Mere Economics Sources

In Mere Economics, we tried to rely on open-access resources wherever we could. Here are a few places to go if you want to check our work: Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, via the most excellent Project Gutenberg. G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy. Via the most excellent Project Gutenberg Australia. Frederick Engels, Socialism:

Birmingham Business Journal Forecast Panel 2025 Thoughts

This morning, I'm participating in an Economic Forecast Panel for the Birmingham Business Journal. Here are my preliminary thoughts based on some of the questions they shared with me beforehand. What Can We Expect From the New Administration? The Good: Trump, like most Republicans, talks a good game

Bill and Ted Take Joan of Arc to Walmart

Note: This post originally appeared at The American Institute for Economic Research. It’s pretty clear: if you wanted Joan of Arc to appreciate the differences between her world and ours, you would take her to the nearest Walmart. In 1989’s critically acclaimed cinematic masterpiece Bill & Ted’s

Pay for Convenience: Travel Edition

I'm a big fan of paying for convenience. In any decision, you have to weigh the costs and the benefits very carefully. That's why, on a recent trip to visit my sister and her family in Minneapolis, I paid the person next to me $10 to

Is Academic Research Really A Public Good?

Academia: "Basic research is a public good the market will under-provide because there are spillover benefits market prices don't capture." Also Academia: "Pregnancy is a disease and 'stereotypes about gender, as well as efforts to exploit the reproductive bodies of chickens, have aided the