Paul Romer of Stanford University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about charter cities, Romer's idea for helping the poorest of the poor around the world. Romer envisions a city where the rules about property and safety and contract and so on are rules that allow individuals to flourish in an urban setting in con...

Paul Romer of New York University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about reforming cities to allow growth and human flourishing. Topics discussed include charter cities, the role of population density in city life, driverless cars, and various ways to help the poorest people in the world.

Paul Romer, Stanford University professor and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about growth, China, innovation, and the role of human capital. Also discussed are ideas in creating growth, the idea that ideas allow for increasing returns, and intellectual property and how it should ...

By Michael Munger

"There were no generators, ice, or chain saws to be had, none. But that means that anyone who brought these commodities into the crippled city, and charged less than infinity, would be doing us a service." Here's the thing: They clapped. I can't for the life of me understand why the people would clap. But I'm starti...

By Bryan Caplan

During the last half of the 19th century , many countries competed to attract immigrants.  All of them eventually reversed course, but how exactly did this reversal unfold?  In "Immigration Policy Prior to the 1930s" (Population and Development Review, 1998), Ashley Timmer and Jeffrey Williams show what happened to i...

Pete Boettke of George Mason University talks about the role of government and voluntary efforts in relieving suffering during and after a crisis such as Katrina. Drawing on field research he is directing into the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Boettke highlights the role of what he calls "civil society"--the informal...

By Scott Sumner

In previous posts, I've criticized the US for bullying other countries to adopt our policies on issues such as tax evasion.  Here's an excerpt from a 2015 post: It seems breathtakingly arrogant for the US to insist that other countries have the same privacy laws that we have. But this is worse. How would you describe...

By Jack Hirshleifer

Defeated in battle and ravaged by bombing in the course of World War II, Germany and Japan nevertheless made postwar recoveries that startled the world. Within ten years these nations were once again considerable economic powers. A decade later, each had not only regained prosperity but had also economically overtaken,...

By Richard Cobden

THE State is a severe mother. She demands from her noblest sons their intellects, their energies, and, if need be, their lives; but she is not ungrateful. The men who have guided her destinies live in grateful memory and in memory the more honoured, if to great service and lofty aims they have added disregard of self, ...

By Russell Roberts Ten Key Ideas: Opening the Door to the Economic Way of Thinking Introduction Here are ten fundamental ideas to help you explore and understand the world around us using the economic way of thinking. I've written an essay on each idea and listed some reading and listening suggestions if you want to...