Economic models of human decision making — maximizing utility subject to the constraints imposed by scarcity — are founded in the idea of taking each person’s preferences (the weights that appear in the person’s utility function) as both known to the individual and given. This paper...

This study empirically investigates the impact on per capita real economic growth of each of the ten measures of economic freedom computed annually by the Heritage Foundation. Within the context of the Random Effects Model, panel least squares estimations using a 5-year panel (2004 through 2008)...

John “Jack” Soper passed away on August 9, 2013. A prolific researcher who retired as the John J. Kahl Sr. Chair in Entrepreneurship at John Carroll University, Soper was a leading light in the field of economic education. His scholarship in the 1970's and 1980's played a very important role...

How can the institutions of a free-market economy be sustained if teachers and students fail to grasp a basic economic understanding? This article describes the current status of economic education at the pre-college levels including teacher knowledge, student knowledge, and the status of...

Analysts have considered what might check the 20th century growth in government, thereby avoiding Leviathan and economic collapse. We develop a model where political economy equilibrium pushes the economy to the brink of collapse, but rising marginal welfare costs may prevent collapse. For small...

This study of the impact of economic freedom, regulatory quality, and the relative burden of taxation on the level of per capita real income/GDP among OECD nations over the 2003-2007 period adopts a modified version of the overall economic freedom index computed by The Heritage Foundation...

Old hands of Econ 101, we have long grappled with resistance on the part of classroom students to appreciate the virtues of free markets. That resistance in late years appears to have increased. Many students resist edification in free markets because they see it as a lowdown attempt to justify...

This essay will consider a number of interesting questions related to the Brexit vote. We will first examine, What is this European Union (EU)-operation that Britain is leaving? Using an economic perspective, Britain's decision to leave the EU will be evaluated based on its costs and benefits to...

All countries have people with an entrepreneurial spirit, but in far too many of them their talent and drive lie fallow. We argue that the most fertile soil for the seeds of entrepreneurship consists of the freedom and informed discipline that characterize market economies. In markets, freedom...

Nobel laureate James McGill Buchanan proudly served as president of the Southern Economic Association from 1962-1963. In his presidential address “What Should Economists Do?,” he suggested that the study of economics is best approached by concentrating on exchange and the coordination that...