Donald J. Boudreaux stories

The clarity with which we humans express desirable objectives often hides reality’s complexity. That’s true for the increasingly common notion, as expressed by President Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro, that America should “bring home its … supply chains for essential medicines.” This sentiment is supported by U.S. Trade Representative Robert...

Public emergencies are not opportunities for making permanent changes in public policies. Politicians under the best of circumstances naturally pander to people’s commonplace fears, such as alarm over imports, immigrants and income inequality. But emergencies, by shortening voters’ time horizons and intensifying sensations of individual helplessness, increase voters’ fears and...

A civilizing feature of any society is the right to say “no.” Indeed, societies can be usefully ranked from good to bad according to the respect that they accord to individuals’ right to say “no” to those who would take their property. The importance of being able to say “no”...

Oren Cass has launched a new conservative think tank, American Compass. It’s meant to “restore an economic consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity.” Family, community and industry — and liberty and prosperity — are indeed important. But as he inadvertently...

During Monday’s Iowa caucuses, a mobile app designed to report results malfunctioned. Unsurprisingly, Republicans gloated that the glitch is a calamity for Democrats. Yet even The New York Times worried about what this snafu might signify. As Times columnist Frank Bruni wrote, “Maybe there’s a moral here in dreaming too...

A century ago — on Jan. 17, 1920, one year after ratification of the 18th Amendment — the United States began its so-called “noble experiment” with nationwide alcohol prohibition. For the next nearly 14 years — until the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th — the force of the federal government...

A traditional New Year’s practice is to express hope for the coming year. As 2020 dawns, I here convey some of my hopes not only for the coming year, but for the coming decade and beyond. I hope, first of all, for an end to this past decade’s infatuation with...

Often in political discourse we encounter statements that initially seem to make sense but that, when examined, turn out to be silly. Here’s a recent example from a Chatham House Royal Institute of International Affairs paper: “The current dispute between the U.S. and China goes far beyond trade tariffs and...

Imagine that overnight every American’s wealth doubles. From Jeff Bezos to the poorest indigent, imagine that each American today can afford to consume twice as many goods and services as that person could afford to consume yesterday. Making accurate specific predictions about what changes in people’s behavior we’d observe is...

To encounter the news today is to encounter an America verging on destruction. Global warming will soon incinerate us, but not before income inequalities turn ordinary Americans into the slaves of oligarchs. And as these ghastly fates unfold, those of us who somehow escape being raped, robbed and cheated out...

Minimum-wage legislation artificially raises firms’ costs of employing low-skilled workers. In consequence, some workers who would have jobs in the absence of the minimum wage are cast by the minimum wage into the ranks of the unemployed. This understanding was long the consensus among economists. Starting in the mid-1990s, however,...

There’s no shortage of arguments offered up for preventing citizens of a liberal democracy, such as the United States, from trading freely with the subjects of an authoritarian state, such as China. Many of these arguments reflect merely an ignorance of Econ 101. It isn’t true, for example, that low-wage...

One hundred years ago this month, James Buchanan was born on a Tennessee farm. No, not the 15th U.S. president. (That James Buchanan was from Pennsylvania.) The James Buchanan to whom I refer won the 1986 Nobel Prize in economics and taught for most of his career in Virginia, most...

It never fails. Every natural disaster brings in its wake higher prices for goods such as plywood and propane, and for services such as plumbing repair and carpentry. Just as surely, politicians and pundits and the general public — as they did in response to Hurricane Dorian — blame these...

Although research on its frontiers is often expressed in dense mathematics and murky jargon, economics’ core is quite straightforward. And it’s as important as ever for public policy. Here are three keys for doing practical economics well. First: recognize that many economic “problems” or “failures” are not real; they are...

Is it better for high-ranking government officials to have experience in the private sector as business owners or executives? Many people answer “yes!” But my answer is that of the economist: It depends. The characteristic that, above all, is best in a politician is humility. Unlike business executives who must...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., won applause during Tuesday’s presidential debate with this proclamation: “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for.” Were I on that stage, here’s...

Among the most politically potent arguments for President Trump’s punitive tariffs on your, my and other Americans’ purchases of imports from China is the claim that these tariffs are a tool for reducing Chinese theft of Americans’ intellectual property (IP). While IP theft in China does occur, as my Mercatus...

Pleas for tariffs and other trade restrictions are made overwhelmingly for economic reasons. The claim is that such restrictions will create jobs, raise wages and otherwise improve our economy. But it is quite common for those who seek protection from foreign competition also to insist that the requested trade restrictions...

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., proposes to establish a new federal agency for designing and directing national industrial policy. Named the National Institute of Manufacturing, this agency would be led by what The Washington Post calls a “manufacturing czar, who could report directly to the president. This person would be called...

A Wayne State University student recently upbraided me by email for various offenses — each of which at bottom amounts to me using my blog, Café Hayek, to defend free markets. This livid young scholar ended his email by declaring that “Capitalism. Is. Not. Working.” His signature revealed that his...

Uncle Sam and Beijing are now waging a full-blown trade war against each other. But trade wars are very different than real wars — you know, the violent struggles in which belligerents on one side try to kill and maim belligerents on the other side, and often also to seize...

Economics grabbed me from the moment I first encountered it as a freshman at Nicholls State University. I remain in awe of economics’ power to explain features of reality that are otherwise inexplicable. Why, for example, did we Americans in the 1970s waste so many hours waiting in long lines...

April 22 of each year is now Earth Day. (I note that April 22 is also the birthday of Vladimir Lenin. Readers may draw their own conclusions.) The internet and airwaves will teem with gloom ’n’ doom, as warnings are heard of a coming calamity. Guilt-tripping will also peak, with...

Today’s obsession with income inequality is an obsession with just one of the countless dimensions along which we human beings differ from each other. Many of these differences reflect individual choices. I spend six hours weekly (and weakly) lifting weights at the gym. The modesty of my effort combines with...