Mere Economics

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Latest — 14 Jun 2025

Economic Naturalists in the Wild

Note: This essay was originally published at my personal blog, Marginalia. Grocery shopping is an ideal context for “economic naturalists.” It’s a great way of looking out your window instead of getting sucked into endless blackboard exercises. In grocery shopping the other day, I noticed, once again, that “not

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In This House We Believe Demand Curves Slope Downward to the Right IV

This series of posts is adapted from an essay originally published on my personal blog, A Fuller's Soap. During graduate school lecturing, a friend who I won’t name once joked, “We’ve covered downward sloping demand curves—what else is there to teach them?” Less flippantly, Armen

Co-Laborers with Christ

Here's a Lewis quote Art and I could have appropriated for the last chapter of Mere Economics, but there are simply too many to choose from. This one's from The World's Last Night: And Other Essays:

Wayland Way

The laborer may sometimes feel like complaining, that the merchant has an easy time sitting at his desk, while he is sweating at his hard toil; that the merchant rides in his carriage, while he trudges on his weary way afoot; that the merchant is rich, while he is poor.

Embrace "Small Steps Toward a Better World"

You shouldn't just enjoy Tyler Cowen & Alex Tabarrok's blog. You should embrace its motto, "Small Steps Toward a Better World." As Thomas Sowell keeps saying, there are no solutions, only trade-offs--and just because a small step in the right direction isn't

In This House, We Believe Demand Curves Slope Downward to the Right III

This series of posts is adapted from an essay originally published on my personal blog, A Fuller's Soap. During graduate school lecturing, a friend who I won’t name once joked, “We’ve covered downward sloping demand curves—what else is there to teach them?” Less flippantly, Armen

Boulding Briefing

Economic progress means the discovery and application of better ways of doing things to satisfy our wans. The piping of water to a household that previously dragged it from a well, the growing of two blades of grass where one grew before, the development of a power loom that enables

Economic Doxologies

And when a long succession of illustrious scholars has drawn more reassuring conclusions from [political economy] after devoting their entire lives to its study; when they assert that freedom and the general welfare are perfectly compatible with justice and peace, and that all these great principles run parallel to one

Leeson Lesson

It’s common to associate the ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ of behaviour with the ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ of the motivations that drive it. But the nobility or ignobility of individuals’ motivations often bears no relationship, and in some cases even exhibits an inverse relationship, to the nobility or ignobility of the

In This House, We Believe Demand Curves Slope Downward to the Right II

This series of posts is adapted from an essay originally published on my personal blog, A Fuller's Soap. During graduate school lecturing, a friend who I won’t name once joked, “We’ve covered downward sloping demand curves—what else is there to teach them?” Less flippantly, Armen