Skip to main content

Research Archive

July 25, 2023

Why Is Economic Growth Good?

As the saying goes, there are no stupid questions. In that generous spirit, it’s certainly legitimate to ask why a continually growing economy is a good thing. Why does GDP have to keep going up? Isn’t life good enough? Economic growth isn’t an economic statistic. That’s just what measures economic growth. A good definition from Our…

July 7, 2023

The 21st Century Decline of Economic Freedom

From 1850 to 2020, industrialized economies went from roughly $3,000 per capita to $40,000 per capita, inflation adjusted. This was also a period of expanding economic freedom, as documented in the new analysis, “Economic freedom, 1850–2020: New evidence” by economic historian Leandro Prados de la Escosura. There are two important things to note about that…

June 28, 2023

Is ‘Bidenomics’ Even a Thing, Really?

The White House is saying that President Biden’s speech today in Chicago will be on the subject of “Bidenomics.” The choice to use that term is a meaningful one, according to the Financial Times: Biden’s move reflects growing confidence inside the White House that he can gain more political credit for his sweeping economic legislation, which has pumped…