Donald J. Boudreaux stories

Donald J. Boudreaux

Donald Boudreaux: Essential questions on essential medicines

The clarity with which we humans express desirable objectives often hides reality’s complexity. That’s true for the increasingly common notion, as expressed by President Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro, that America should “bring home its … supply chains for essential medicines.” This sentiment is supported by U.S. Trade Representative Robert...
Donald Boudreaux: Globalization, wealth & health

Public emergencies are not opportunities for making permanent changes in public policies. Politicians under the best of circumstances naturally pander to people’s commonplace fears, such as alarm over imports, immigrants and income inequality. But emergencies, by shortening voters’ time horizons and intensifying sensations of individual helplessness, increase voters’ fears and...
Donald Boudreaux: The most important two-letter word in the English language

A civilizing feature of any society is the right to say “no.” Indeed, societies can be usefully ranked from good to bad according to the respect that they accord to individuals’ right to say “no” to those who would take their property. The importance of being able to say “no”...
Donald Boudreaux: Conservatives can be just as mistaken as ‘progressives’

Oren Cass has launched a new conservative think tank, American Compass. It’s meant to “restore an economic consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity.” Family, community and industry — and liberty and prosperity — are indeed important. But as he inadvertently...
Donald Boudreaux: There’s no app for social engineering

During Monday’s Iowa caucuses, a mobile app designed to report results malfunctioned. Unsurprisingly, Republicans gloated that the glitch is a calamity for Democrats. Yet even The New York Times worried about what this snafu might signify. As Times columnist Frank Bruni wrote, “Maybe there’s a moral here in dreaming too...
Donald Boudreaux: Remembering not-so-noble Prohibition experiment

A century ago — on Jan. 17, 1920, one year after ratification of the 18th Amendment — the United States began its so-called “noble experiment” with nationwide alcohol prohibition. For the next nearly 14 years — until the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th — the force of the federal government...
Donald Boudreaux: Some hopes for 2020 & beyond

A traditional New Year’s practice is to express hope for the coming year. As 2020 dawns, I here convey some of my hopes not only for the coming year, but for the coming decade and beyond. I hope, first of all, for an end to this past decade’s infatuation with...
Donald Boudreaux: Talk of global supremacy meaningless

Often in political discourse we encounter statements that initially seem to make sense but that, when examined, turn out to be silly. Here’s a recent example from a Chatham House Royal Institute of International Affairs paper: “The current dispute between the U.S. and China goes far beyond trade tariffs and...
Donald Boudreaux: What does decline in labor-force participation mean?

Imagine that overnight every American’s wealth doubles. From Jeff Bezos to the poorest indigent, imagine that each American today can afford to consume twice as many goods and services as that person could afford to consume yesterday. Making accurate specific predictions about what changes in people’s behavior we’d observe is...
Donald Boudreaux: State of humanity is excellent — and improving

To encounter the news today is to encounter an America verging on destruction. Global warming will soon incinerate us, but not before income inequalities turn ordinary Americans into the slaves of oligarchs. And as these ghastly fates unfold, those of us who somehow escape being raped, robbed and cheated out...
Donald Boudreaux: Difficult-to-see consequences of minimum wage

Minimum-wage legislation artificially raises firms’ costs of employing low-skilled workers. In consequence, some workers who would have jobs in the absence of the minimum wage are cast by the minimum wage into the ranks of the unemployed. This understanding was long the consensus among economists. Starting in the mid-1990s, however,...
Donald Boudreaux: Does free trade further fuel Beijing’s tyranny?

There’s no shortage of arguments offered up for preventing citizens of a liberal democracy, such as the United States, from trading freely with the subjects of an authoritarian state, such as China. Many of these arguments reflect merely an ignorance of Econ 101. It isn’t true, for example, that low-wage...
Donald Boudreaux: James Buchanan, economist for the ages

One hundred years ago this month, James Buchanan was born on a Tennessee farm. No, not the 15th U.S. president. (That James Buchanan was from Pennsylvania.) The James Buchanan to whom I refer won the 1986 Nobel Prize in economics and taught for most of his career in Virginia, most...
Donald Boudreaux: In defense of so-called ‘price gouging’

It never fails. Every natural disaster brings in its wake higher prices for goods such as plywood and propane, and for services such as plumbing repair and carpentry. Just as surely, politicians and pundits and the general public — as they did in response to Hurricane Dorian — blame these...
Donald Boudreaux: Three critical economic realities

Although research on its frontiers is often expressed in dense mathematics and murky jargon, economics’ core is quite straightforward. And it’s as important as ever for public policy. Here are three keys for doing practical economics well. First: recognize that many economic “problems” or “failures” are not real; they are...
Donald Boudreaux: Do business people make better government officials?

Is it better for high-ranking government officials to have experience in the private sector as business owners or executives? Many people answer “yes!” But my answer is that of the economist: It depends. The characteristic that, above all, is best in a politician is humility. Unlike business executives who must...

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