Explainers
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The Economics of Zoning, Explained
What are zoning laws, how do they work, and what are their economic effects?
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A Brief History of Federal Transfers to the States
This explainer traces the evolving, mutually dependent relationship between the federal government and the states through four pivotal eras of fiscal transfers: the Antebellum Land Grants, the Civil War, the New Deal, and the Great Society.
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Mises and Hayek: Two Complementary Critiques of Central Planning
Economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek explain why the promises of central planning are fundamentally unworkable insofar as no central authority can replicate the rational calculation of market prices or the coordination of dispersed knowledge.
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The Gold Standard, Explained
This explainer will outline what the gold standard was, how it operated, the benefits and criticisms surrounding it, and how its rise and eventual collapse shaped the global monetary system.
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Understanding Medicaid
This explainer will outline how Medicaid functions, the program’s costs, its influence on healthcare in the United States, and how the proposed policy changes in 2025 could reshape the program.
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How Does the Federal Reserve Set Interest Rates?
Introduction People in financial markets and in the media regularly track Federal Reserve announcements and forecast what the Fed’s interest rate target will be in the future. But when people […]
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Foundations of Economics: It All Starts With Cooperation
It is by understanding the nature of cooperation that one can see how the evolution of all the other foundations of economics, and even the free market economy itself, was driven by the societal benefits from ever more effective cooperation.
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Why Consumption—Not Production—Is the True Goal of Economic Activity
Just as an all-powerful monarch dictates what his subjects may and may not do — and just as no subject has any power to direct or constrain the monarch’s actions — consumers in a competitive market economy ‘command’ producers to do this and that, as well as to avoid doing countless other things.
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What Is the Jones Act—and Can It Be Fixed?
The Jones Act has been a staple of the American political landscape for over one hundred years. It has also created many unintended consequences.
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What the End of the Chevron Doctrine Means
Paul Mueller explains how the regulatory environment and economy changes with the end of the Chevron Doctrine.
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What is Central Bank Independence?
The explainer defines central bank independence, describes its theoretical desirability, and reviews classic and contemporary studies on how central bank independence affects key macroeconomic variables.
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Who Really Sets Tariffs—and How?
In this Explainer, we’ll seek to understand what tariffs are, who gets to set them, and under what conditions.
