Articles & Essays

More essays

• Come From AwayDec 21, 2019
• Health Care Lessons from Dr. Keith SmithNov 21, 2019
• Transience and TranscendenceNov 8, 2019
• What I’ve Learned from Jordan PetersonMar 27, 2018
• Write a song with my dadSep 3, 2017
• Nancy MacLean Owes Tyler Cowen an ApologyJun 26, 2017

All essays on Medium ↗

From the archive

115 older columns and essays, back at their original addresses.

• Price Gouging Could Actually Fix Our Face Mask ShortageMedium · 2020
• The Economist as ScapegoatMedium · 2020
• Does Ridesharing Increase Traffic Deaths?Medium · 2019
• Do I Deserve What I Have? Part IIMedium · 2018
• My Trip to PittsburghMedium · 2018
• The Lonely Man with a GunMedium · 2018
• The Outrage Epidemic – Part IMedium · 2018
• What Do Economists Actually KnowMedium · 2017
• UncoordinatedMedium · 2016
• The Morality of Surge Pricing — IIMedium · 2016
• The Morality of Surge PricingMedium · 2016
• Wonder, Bread2015
• Janet Yellen Won’t Change the FedDaily Beast · 2013
• Why Friedrich Hayek is Making a ComebackWall Street Journal · 2011
• Gambling with Other People’s MoneyMercatus · 2010
• The Speech I Wish Obama Had GivenForbes · 2009
• How Government Stoked the ManiaWall Street Journal · 2008
• Why We TradeForeign Policy · 2007
• Workers Don’t Need UnionsLos Angeles Times · 2007
• Funding Space TravelNational Public Radio · 2006
• The Lessons of MonopolyNational Public Radio · 2006
• The Ultimate Chain LetterHoover Digest · 2005
• Why Are We Losing Manufacturing Jobs?National Public Radio · 2003
• Only a GameSt. Louis Post Dispatch · 2003
• Profits vs. LoveFoundation for Economic Education · 2003
• College Grads in DebtNational Public Radio · 2003
• I, PepsiFoundation for Economic Education · 2001
• A Sausage By Any Other NameSt. Louis Post Dispatch · 2001
• How Safe is that Trucker in the Window?The Library of Economics and Liberty · 2001
• Relying on RelativesFoundation for Economic Education · 2001
• Free Trade And InflationNational Public Radio · 1997
• If You’re Paying, I’ll Have Top SirloinWall Street Journal · 1995
• Would a ban on soft money hurt special interest politics?
• Will Time Prove Ben Bernanke Wrong?
• Widening Route 6
• Why the State of Economic Literacy Is So Appalling (and What to Do about It)
• Why Linux Is Wealthier Than Microsoft
• Why Frank Underwood is a Democrat
• What Economists Know and Do Not Know
• What Do Farmers Want From Me?
• We Can’t Get Rich Doing Each Other’s Laundry
• Voodoo TaxationSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• Transforming the Political Marketplace
• Traffic Nirvana Unlikely on the Cape
• Tiger Woods Takes The Times To Task For Its Masters Disaster (Satire)St. Louis Post Dispatch
• The Science of Stimulus
• The Reality of Markets
• The Price of RomanceSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• The Locomotive in the Rain Forest
• The Lady in the Harbor
• The Great Outsourcing Scare of 2004
• The Disrupters
• The Bear Stearns Debacle
• The Bagel and the Index Fund
• Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives on trade (CAFTA)
• Take My Used Book, Please!
• Sunny Side Up
• Subliminal Advertising for Politicians
• Should We Have Let Wall Street Go Bust?
• Selling Anchovy Ice Cream
• Protectionists Never Learn
• Presidential Economics: What Leaders Can and Cannot Do about the State of the Economy
• Paulson’s Faulty Imagination
• Outsourcing and Job Security
• Organic Market
• On This Labor Day, the Glass Is Half-Full
• Nothing’s Free: How Lotteries Work
• Nothing Left to Buy?
• No Such Thing as a Safe Drug
• No Picnic on the PrairieSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• No Fat TaxSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• Nickel and Dimed and Quartered
• Napsternomics: What’s the Most Effective Way to Protect Intellectual Property?
• Mr. President, Don’t Toy With The TruthSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• More than an Invention
• More money hasn’t made public schools betterSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• Microsoft Woods
• Know Your Limits
• Jobs Abroad, Benefits at Home
• Is the Dismal Science Really a Science?
• Is Holiday Spending Good for America?
• Is Bethlehem Steel the Canary in the Economic Mine Shaft?
• Incentives Matter
• In Praise of the Oh-So-Dependable Cardboard BoxSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• In Praise of That Ugly Box On the Edge of TownSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• In Praise of MercenariesSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• In Defense of High Prices and Profits
• Illuminating the Unseen
• If They Hawk It, You Will ComeSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• How to Move the Economy Forward?
• How Little We Know
• Here’s to Your HealthSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• Halve The Deficit? Good Luck, Obama
• Farm Aid
• Don’t Mend it, End ItSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• Don’t Just Do Something. Stand There
• Don’t Bash the ‘Burbs, Improve the CitySt. Louis Post Dispatch
• Does Trade Exploit the Poorest of the Poor?
• Do “Big Box” Retailers Harm the Quality of Life?
• Disorder on the Court
• Deficits Don’t Mean Disaster
• Defending Baseball’s UnNatural
• Cut Taxes, Help the Rich (And the rest of us too)
• Curing What Ails Corporate AmericaSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• Congressional Testimony, Oct. 28, 2009
• Congressional Testimony, Dec. 10, 2009
• College Football Without Romance
• Cipro and Price Controls on Pharmaceuticals
• Carrots and SticksSt. Louis Post Dispatch
• Can You Be Too Rich?
• Archaeological Economics
• America and the World’s Resources
• A Professor’s Professor
• A Marvel of Cooperation: How Order Emerges without a Conscious Planner
• A Debt of Gratitude