Mere Economics

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Latest — 20 Jun 2025

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

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

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Schlossberg Shrewdness

Christian love seeks to help the person but refuses to elevate the problem by giving it ontological status and worth. It also avoids helping the weak as a means of causing harm to the strong. In this it heeds the apostle’s admonition that love “does not rejoice at wrong,

Want to Feed the Multitudes?

The Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics recently featured a small slice from Mere Economics. Here's a small slice of that small slice: Scarcity constrains us, but there is a path toward greater abundance. Let’s illustrate a powerful idea with just a little arithmetic. Suppose that in

Trade is Made of Win

That's a phrase my intrepid Mere Economics co-author likes to use. In our two most recent pieces for The Independent Institute, Scott Burns and I explain why it's therefore unfortunate that a word with negative connotations-deficit-got involved. Here's an excerpt from our piece on

Observations From a "No Kings" Protest

I wasn't planning to go, but some friends said they were going. So we made signs and joined in. As I've told everyone, the best thing about this sign is that I can use it again when the Democrats are back in power. Protectionism, sadly, is

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

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