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Although Austrian economists do a lot of teaching and public writing, a vital part of their activity is spreading ideas through scholarly research. Research is not just the way we add to the body of knowledge left by previous generations, but is also an effective means of engaging and challenging the ideas of mainstream economics (especially

There’s a popular misconception that giving tax breaks to industries is the same as subsidizing them. Sadly, like many economic myths, this one just won’t die. The video game industry offers a recent example. Critics have been arguing for years that US game developers are given unfair advantages and “subsidies” through a range of state and federal

In a recent Mises Daily I argued against the widespread belief that tax breaks are a kind of subsidy. This proved to be a controversial topic, so I’d like to clarify the basic argument, as well as raise some additional criticisms. In some ways it makes sense that people conflate tax exemptions and subsidies, because both are inextricably tied up

Ryan McMaken’s post about the F-35 Lightning II rightly points out that the only thing defense spending actually defends are the profits of defense contractors. Yet no matter how egregious the waste of taxpayer money, people still seem to think that if the Pentagon isn’t supplied with a steady stream of increasingly high-tech, expensive toys, any

Dean Shepherd has a new article in the Journal of Business Venturing discussing the future of entrepreneurship research. A video of Shepherd talking through his major points can be found here , along with a gated version of the paper, which is aptly titled, “Party On! A call for entrepreneurship research that is more interactive, activity based,

The war on cash is now a global phenomenon : under the pretext of tracing criminal activity, governments everywhere are cracking down on commerce that isn’t monitored or controlled. However, the results of this war reveal its true purpose: tracking citizens and their taxable income . The war on cash is actually a war on commerce, or rather, on any

This year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo is in full swing, allowing gamers to feast their eyes on the best the industry has to offer in the foreseeable (yet inevitably delayed) future. E3 usually features the biggest publishers hyping their flagship titles, but there’s always more on offer at the event than the usual annual updates to shooters

Britain’s historic decision to leave the European Union represents a blow to political centralization. However, it’s also a sobering reminder that the work of advancing peace and economic freedom is never done. Britain may be extricating itself from EU political control, but if its goal is genuine progress and prosperity, it will need to do much

For a group of people who reject political power and even the state itself, libertarians sure seem to care a lot about the election. In the past few months, there’s even been a kind of desperation in libertarian circles to find something, anything that could vaguely connect one of the candidates to a philosophy of liberty or economic sanity. The

Austrian economics often focuses on the vital role the entrepreneur plays in driving the economy, through the constant arrangement of the capital structure, in order to provide consumers with a constant stream of goods and services. But the question of what happens when government tries its hand at the same function of ownership,