The articles collected in the three-volume set of Chicago Price Theory illustrate elements of continuity and change in the development of the Chicago School. Its editors stress a continuity in price theory at Chicago that runs from Frank Knight to Gary Becker. Our main contribution in this...

We conceive of political economy, historical and contemporary, as reflecting sometimes competing and other times complementary assessments of the appropriate role of the state in economic life grounded in alternative approaches to the paradox of government. We call these differing approaches and...

Karl Marx perhaps the most astute student of economic doctrine, once made the famous and apposite observation that in substantial passages of "The Wealth of Nations" Adam Smith "was very copiously infected with the conceptions of the Physiocrats." In parallel fashion this paper agues that in...

Elias Khalil's "Information, Knowledge and the Close of Friedrich Hayek's System," argues that an internal contradiction exists within Hayek's political economy relating to his use of information and knowledge. As a result, Khalil argues that neither Hayek's critique of planning nor his defense...

The author explores the microfoundations of Gordon Tullock's contributions to political economy and argue that his approach is consistent with the "invisible hand" theorizing of Adam Smith. While Smith (and Hayek) are celebrated for their emphasis on the "bright-side" of spontaneous social...

Legal scholars and economists alike have been quite critical of F. A. Hayek’s legal theory. According to Richard Posner, Hayek’s legal theory is “formalist” and serves as a useless guide for legal scholars and judges. Alan Ebenstein claims that Hayek’s arguments in technical economics...

This paper documents and articulates Murray N. Rothbard’s contribution to our understanding of the theory and practice of socialism. We summarize his theoretical contributions and then turn to his explanation of the operation of socialism in the Soviet Union. Moreover, we make and support the...