Mises Search

According to Mariana Mazzucato, the RM Phillips Professor in the Economics of Innovation at the University of Sussex, government is an important factor in the promotion of innovation and thus economic growth. In particular, she challenges the popular view that innovation happens in the private sector, with governments playing a limited role. Many

Why are individuals willing to pay higher prices for some goods relative to other goods? The common reply to this appeals to the laws of supply and demand. But what is behind these laws? To provide a further answer to this question economists refer to the law of diminishing marginal utility.  Mainstream economics explains this law in terms of the

Individuals are often presented as if a value scale is hard-wired in their heads. Allegedly, this value scale remains the same all the time. As a result, this value scale supposedly instructs individuals in the selection of goods. Were that the case, then it makes sense to attempt to extract this value scale either by means of questionnaires or

On September 18, 2024 the Federal Reserve (“Fed”) lowered its policy interest rate target by 0.5 percent to 5 percent. Most commentators, including the Fed chairman Jerome Powell, hold that the lowering of the policy rate is going to strengthen the economy. This way of thinking is based on the view that the lowering of interest rates is going to

Assumptions that some economists are employing in their theories appear to be detached from the real world. For example, in order to explain the economic crisis in Japan, Paul Krugman employed a theory based on the assumptions that people are identical and live forever. Whilst admitting that these assumptions are not realistic, Krugman nonetheless