General economics and finance

1. Articles in English
2. Articles in French
3. Articles in other languages
4. Articles by, or with, other authors

Articles in English

• Marshall on Depressions (The Barstool Economists, September 2, 2009). In his Principles of Economics (1920), Alfred Marshall perhaps says about depressions everything that needs to be said – in just a few paragraphs.
• The Origins of the Economic Crisis (Montréal Economic Institute, March 6, 2009). The actual economic crisis points more to government failure than to market failure. Also available in a French version.
• The Brave New World of Stimulus (Financial Post, December 19, 2008). "Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches." It's all in Huxley's Brave New World.
• What Deregulation? (Financial Post, October 30, 2008). We should take seriously Alan Greenspan’s apparent admission that he had underestimated the self-regulating capacity of financial markets.
• No Free Financial Lunch (Financial Post, October 22, 2008). Shouldn't the federal government purchase all credit instruments from private financial institutions?
• A Crisis of Global Statism (Financial Post, September 20, 2008). In the U.S., we basically had financial socialism with a human face.
• May's Costly War on Poverty (Financial Post, September 10, 2008). The Green Party's virtuous guaranteed annual income is not exactly a brillant idea.
• Listeria Hysteria (Financial Post, September 5, 2008). If anybody were able to stop accidents, it would be government bureaus like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
• Looting the Tobacco Companies (Financial Post, August 6, 2008). Black markets always develop when the state tries to ban or severely restrict something consumers want.
• Bombardier's Gain is the Taxpayer's Loss (Financial Post, July 23, 2008). Bombardier’s executives may have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to rob the taxpayers.
• The System Works (Financial Post, April 29, 2008). A great opportunity exists to take our distances from the old and inefficient American model of securities regulation.
• Global Value Chains for Canadian Taxpayers (September 25, 2007). Hear about Québec wheat and Industry Canada's conferences on value chains for Canadian taxpayers.
• Hollow Goddess of Productivity (Financial Post, August 22, 2007). Pious sermons to businesses for not investing enough and not being good girls are meaningless.
• Alcoholic Actions Speak Louder (Financial Post, June 12, 2007). As for the public monopolies, like the SAQ or the LCBO, they continue sucking their two breasts (my apologies for the hyperbole, I must have seen too many Educ’alcool ads): control and money.
• The OECD Drift (The Sovereign Society Offshore A-Letter, February 21, 2006). From an innocuous and rather useful free-market-oriented economic and statistical shop, the OECD has become a promoter of global diktats.
• The Problem with "Freedom Indexes" (The Sovereign Society Offshore A-Letter, January 25, 2006). In the U.S., so many business executives are going to jail that perhaps repression will have to be outsourced to China.
• Bike Protectionism (Financial Post, September 7, 2005). Political efficiency requires another rule: give the most politically powerful the right to produce the bikes and screw the consumer.
• Commodity Myth (Financial Post, August 30, 2005). There is no reason to fear Chinese demand pushing up resource prices.
• Oil Price Mirage (Financial Post, August 19, 2005). Apart from price spikes during times of crisis, the price of crude tends generally downward.
• A Fund for Profit Activists (Financial Post, May 26, 2005). Executives are as incompetent in battles of ideas as they are efficient at producing goods and services.
• When It Comes to GDP, 2 - 1 = 2? (Financial Post, March 17, 2005). Presenting imports as a subtraction from GDP conveys the wrong impression that they are bad for the economy.
• Government Deficits Matter, Others Don't (Financial Post, December 15, 2004). The concept of current account deficit exists mainly to justify state intervention and the arbitrary borders it imposes.
• The Public Choice Revolution (Regulation, Fall 2004). Except in an abstract constitutional perspective (agreement on very basic rules), the political “we” implies that some individuals impose their preferences to others.
• The SEC Does'nt Want the Truth to Get Out (Financial Post, September 22, 2004). The Securities and Exchange Commission is the new Ministry of Truth.
• Canada's Broken Health Care System (Ripon Forum, Fall 2004). The American system is far from ideal, but the reason is that it is too socialized and regulated, not because it needs more government intervention.
• The Nanny Monster (Financial Post, September 10, 2004). Whether the state a benevolent institution or a Leviathan that will try to screw the poor and sick, private health care should nob be forbidden.
• Robbery, Québec Style (Financial Post, August 26, 2004). The clerk is legally obliged to render a “judgment” that “shall be equivalent to a judgment.” Why wait if you know that the accused are guilty?
• Wrong Wavelength (Financial Post, August 11, 2004). Yielding before CHOI’s freedom of expression would hopefully bring the collapse of this Potemkin village of artificial, state-imposed, anti-liberty “Canadian values.”
• Plumber Economics (Financial Post, June 24, 2004). His own interests, as a trade union apparatchik, are aligned with the mercantilist establishment’s interests, against consumers, taxpayers and poorer workers.
• Monopoly on Trial (Financial Post, June 9, 2004). In the Supreme Court, the monopoly’s defenders claimed again that a parallel private system would threaten the viability of the public system.
• Political Homogeneity & How to Hide Expenditures (Financial Post, April 21, 2004). A different explanation views “public opinion” as an ill-defined mix of unstable minority views, and the state as a power hungry redistributive machine with a momentum of its own.
• When Regulators Run Loose (Financial Post, April 16, 2004). Officially restating earnings is a quite recent obligation, imposed by the Ministry of Truth -­ pardon me, by The Regulator.
• Cut Spending $20-Billion (Financial Post, February 28, 2004). Let's talk about grants to researchers, artists, individual do-gooders, state propagandists and other favourites of the regime.
• Smash the State, Not Microsoft (Financial Post, February 26, 2004). The Economist is calling for the state to break Microsoft. I would rather have Microsoft break the state.
• Following the Herd (Regulation Magazine, Winter 2003-04). Cascade theory explains why a lot of people can be wrong. When incorrect cascades develop, bad public policy will follow.
• Watch Out for Politically Correct State-talk (Financial Post, December 5, 2003). In George Orwell's 1984, the power of Newspeak is that it does not permit to articulate thoughts against the established order.
• International Social (In)Security Net (Financial Post, October 3, 2003). Nice fantasy land, until one realizes that the so-called "social dialogue" requires the cops to stand by.
• Health Care's Hidden Costs (Financial Post, August 28, 2003). In the short-run, the only efficient solution to the problems of the Canadian system would be to legalize private health insurance.
• Junk Economics (Financial Post, August 6, 2003). They see the economy "losing steam" as if it were a Via Rail/Bombardier locomotive.
• The Euro Vs. the Pound? (Laissez Faire Electronic Times, June 30, 2003). The British state should neither impose the euro, nor favor the pound. Let consumers choose.
• State Should Stop Trying to Set Value of Dollar (The Gazette, May 28, 2003). Monetary policy can build economic Potemkin villages; it cannot change the nature of the economic world.
• Does Vice Pay? (Financial Post, April 4, 2003). At least, when private investors jump on the ethical bandwagon, they do it with their own money.
• Loan Guarantees Are Mandatory Lotteries for Taxpayers (The Gazette, January 29, 2003). Bombardier has gone from a free-market entrepreneurial venture to a golden lame duck.
• Business Subsidy Scam (Financial Post, February 26, 2003). To paraphrase Willy Sutton, Ford and DaimlerChrysler rob the taxpayers because that's where the money is.
• The Anti-Capitalist Witch-Hunt (Laissez Faire Electronic Times, December 23, 2002). The attacks against "unethical" corporations point mainly not to flaws in capitalism, but to state failures and to the continuing anti-capitalist witch-hunt.
• This is Freedom? (Financial Post, November 2, 2002). The problem is whether a simple index can really measure economic freedom.
• Don't Forbid Capitalist Acts Between Consenting Adults (Financial Post, August 15, 2002). The main trend since the 1980s has been towards increasingly stringent standards on the disclosure and circulation of financial information, and on the behaviour of market participants.
• The Ultimate Enron (Financial Post, June 25, 2002). The citizens are the formal shareholders of the state, but no one can sell his shares and bailout. The state is the ultimate Enron.
• Bush Overreacts to Enron (The Gazette, March 16, 2002). The Enron craze has one function: to increase state power over nominally private corporations.
• Is the State Shrinking? (Laissez-Faire Electronic Times, February 25, 2002). During the last two decades, the state increased its expenditures and, more conspicuously, its networks of monitoring, surveillance and control.
• Who's Served by the Public Interest? (Financial Post, February 20, 2002). The securities regulators are defending not the public interest but the private interests of some special groups.
• There Are No Predators (Ottawa Citizen, December 11, 2001). The fox of the state is already in the henhouse of air travel, but this is no argument to give it still sharper teeth.
• Government Power Grab Continues (The Gazette, November 19, 2001) The overgoverned appear ungovernable, and the easiest solution, from the state's viewpoint, is to restrict political competition.
• Economic Imperialism (Laissez Faire City Times, September 3, 2001). The economic analysis of law is concerned with the efficiency of legal rules.
• Hands Off the Currencies (Laissez Faire City Times, July 30, 2001). Contrary to popular belief, the choice of a currency isn't something that needs to be imposed by government.
• Regulatory Bullies (Financial Post, July 28, 2001). The assault on selective disclosure is just another junk-science type of witch hunt.
• Dollarization by Default (Financial Post, July 17, 2001). Contrary to popular belief, the choice of a currency isn't something that needs to be imposed by government.
• What Deregulation? The Avalanche Continues (Financial Post, July 5, 2001). A law-abiding citizen who wanted to read the new federal laws and regulations would spend more than one month on this task, full-time, every year.
• WHO's Whiteshirts (Laissez-Faire City Times, June 4, 2001). Suppose that there are some individuals who cannot reach a near "complete mental and social well-being" while they are ruled by the whiteshirts.
• Tyranny Laundering (Laissez-Faire City Times, May 21, 2001). The concerted effort of the most powerful states in the world to fight victimless crimes and crimes against the state is nothing but an effort to hide an increase in their taxing and surveillance powers.
• Lip Service to Democracy (Financial Post, May 8, 2001). We will not get closer to the ideal of a no-passport world by establishing state cartels which, under the pretense of free trade, aim at monitoring and managing people's lives.
• The Tax Leviathan (Laissez-Faire City Times, April 30, 2001). An important part of the taxes we are forced to pay actually produce "bads," not goods, at least for the invisible minority of individuals who want to be left peacefully alone.
• Free Trade Doesn't Require Treaties (Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2001). In FTAA debates as in other trade issues, a source of much confusion is the failure to realize that free trade is a consequence of individual sovereignty.
• Perfume of Prometheus (Laissez-Faire City Times, April 23, 2001). Suppose that the law allowed special flights advertised for "Smokers and Lovers of Secondhand Smoke Only" (call them "SALSSO flights" for short).
• Violent Non-Violence (Laissez-Faire City Times, April 16, 2001). The non-violence antitrade activists claim to use is meant to advocate violence.
• Ottawa Wins a Jet Battle, But Canadians Lose (Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2000). To avenge what it considers unfair subsidies to the Brazilian aeronautical industry, the Canadian government is preparing to get even by punishing Canadian consumers.
• In Defense of Lai Changxing (Exclusive to this site, November 30, 2000). What horrible crimes this Chinese guy must have committed! Who would want to defend him? We do.
• Democracy and the Economics of Politics (Liberty Free Press, November 21, 2000). Calling an election serves more to keep minorities in their place than to "consult the people," whatever that means.
• Let's Decriminalize Health Insurance (National Post, November 18, 2000). Strangely, or perhaps conveniently, the Canadian political debate on public health insurance has ignored the system’s fundamental feature.
• Where Have the Two Trillion Dollars Gone? (Exclusive to this site, November 2, 2000). Since Keynes's 1936 General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, macroeconomics has been used to justify the intervention mystique and the idea that the state creates prosperity by digging holes in people's pockets.
• Tobacco Companies Must Fight Back (National Post, July 18, 2000). Canadian governments also tend to import the craziest American fashions – just as, in Evelyn Waugh’s novels, African despots plagiarize the worst European ways.
• The Economics of Smoking (Liberty Fund's Library of Economics and Liberty, June 28, 2000). Why most economists arrive at conclusions opposite to those of the Public Health doctrine.
• CCRA: The Sniffing-dog State (Liberty Free Press, May 2000). A government dog, litterally and figuratively, sniffing people's luggage is a good logo for the new American-style "Canada Customs and Revenue Agency."
• Economics of the Smoking Debate (Exclusive to this site, January 21, 2000).On the occasion of the Non-Something Week, a little reflection is in order on the smoking debate.
• Social Costs of Tobacco: All Smoke, No Fire (National Post, January 20, 1999). Virtually all economic studies over the past 20 years show that there is no net social cost of smoking.
• Of Play and Money (Discourse, Summer 1997). How to make a fortune as a speculator: a review of Victor Niederhoffer, The Education of a Speculator (New York: Wiley, 1997). [A similar review in French was published in Le Figaro-Économie (Paris), February 20, 1997.]
• Partitioning the State: Some Basic Observations (Published in Research Memo, No. 68, February 5, 1996). In 1983, I wrote in my Du libéralisme à l'anarcho-capitalisme (Paris: PUF, 1983) that if Canada was divisible, so was Québec. In the wake of the present debate in Québec, here are some theoretical reflections on this topic.
• Auditing the Income Tax (Liberty, September 1995). What are the economic and moral justifications of income taxation, if not to increase state power?
• Canada's Taxing Pols Outwitted by Underground Economy (Wall Street Journal, April 8, 1994). What happens when government prohibits innocent vices.
• The Diminishing Returns to Tobacco Legislation (Laissez Faire City Times, March 19, 2001). The increasing size and aggressiveness of government warnings on tobacco products point to decreasing returns to regulation.
• In Support or Tax Evasion (Globe and Mail, January 31, 1994). If Canadians in the underground economy were to start paying their "fair" taxes, government revenues and expenses would simply increase accordingly. So the underground economy is a useful restraint on Leviathan, and a benefit to all taxpayers.
• Socialized Medicine: The Canadian Experience (Published in The Freeman, March 1989; reproduced in Politicized Medicine, Foundation for Economic Education, 1993). The Canadian health system is one of the most tightly nationalized in the Western world. How does it fare?

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Articles in French

• Les origines de la crise économique (Institut économique de Montréal, 4 mars 2009). Il semble bien les troubles actuels manifestent
  davantage une défaillance de l’État qu’une défaillance du marché. Aussi disponible en langue anglaise.
• L'illusion keynésienne (La Tribune, 13 janvier 2008). Il y a peut-être deux Keynes, un dieu en deux personnes en quelque sorte.
• Les quatre vérités de la médecine socialisée (Institut Turgot, février 2006 -- traduction française d'une conférence prononcée à l'Institut Bruno Leoni, Rome, novembre 2004). Comme Bismark l’avait entrevu, la médecine
  socialisée amène la population à considérer l’État comme un Big Brother bienveillant.
• Les recettes et les dépenses du gouvernement fédéral (Le Point de l'IEDM, 12 décembre 2005). Le parti au pouvoir à Ottawa ne semble pas exercer une influence majeure sur l'évolution des recettes et des dépenses.
• CHOI-FM: Une bonne occasion de déstabiliser Léviathan (Le Québécois libre, 15 août 2004). Écoutez nos commères d’inquisiteurs disserter savamment autour de l’impact sur « les femmes en général » de propos concernant les nichons d’une animatrice de télé, laquelle, la pauvre naïve, est allée se plaindre au protecteur attitré des nichons, papa CRTC.
• La fonction économique des prix (Courrier du Médecin Vaudois, 7 novembre 2003). Dans le domaine des soins de santé comme ailleurs, des prix librement déterminés sont indispensables à l’efficacité économique.
• L'analyse économique du droit (Le Québécois libre, 9 septembre 2001).Ce qui relie l'économie au droit est donc que les lois établissent des incitations dont les conséquences peuvent être plus ou moins efficaces.
• Le siècle de la finance (Le Figaro-Économie, 8 juin 2001). Comment s’assurer que les pouvoirs publics corrigent leurs politiques erronées au lieu de créer de nouveaux problèmes en intervenant sans cesse pour corriger les effets des interventions antérieures?
• Un spéculateur anticapitaliste (Le Figaro-Économie, 13 avril 2001). L’establishment capitaliste est souvent étranger à la défense de la liberté économique, et la véritable ligne de fracture sépare, d’une part, l’étatisme de droite comme de gauche et, d’autre part, les idées libérales et libertariennes.
• Le siècle de l'État (Le Figaro-Économie, 6 avril 2001). Comme le souhaitait Mussolini, le XXe siècle aura bien été, hélas, "le siècle de l'État".
• La Banque Mondiale et la guerre du tabac (Le Figaro-Économie, 9 mars 2001). On est en présence d’une sorte d’apartheid légal qui empêche la concurrence du marché d’offrir aux consommateur – mêmes minoritaires ou statistiquement plus pauvres, comme les fumeurs – les services qu’ils sont prêts à payer.
• L'avenir du tabac (Futuribles, no 261 [février 2001]). L’avenir du tabac sera étroitement lié aux grandes tendances sociales et politiques dans le monde. Deux scénarios délimitent le domaine des possibles.
• À quoi servent les économistes? (Le Figaro-Économie, 19 janvier 2001). Plusieurs économistes contemporains se sont interrogés sur le conflit éventuel entre la modélisation et la pertinence socio-politique de la science économique.
• Du permis de conduire au permis pour avoir des enfants (Le Figaro-Économie, 8 décembre 2000). Puisque l’on accepte de soumettre à autorisation administrative des activités moins risquées, on doit admettre que les pouvoirs publics contrôlent la compétence des parents avant de les laisser faire et élever des enfants.
• Théories contre l'impôt (Publié sur ce site le 1er novembre 2000). Ce qui nous amène à la question de fond qui est sous-jacente à celle de l’impôt: l’État a-t-il un rôle légitime à jouer?
• Économie de l'exception française (Le Figaro-Économie, 15 septembre 2000). L'"exception française" devrait consister à rejeter les forces homogénéisantes des pouvoirs étatiques, qu'ils soient nationaux ou supranationaux. Une "exception" imposée aux individus feraient surtout de la France un musée.
• Le coût social du tabac (Le Figaro-Économie, 18 février 2000). L'important rapport publié par la Banque mondiale en 1999, croit que les « policy-makers » sont plus compétents que les simples individus pour déterminer ce qui est bon pour eux-mêmes. Cette approche n'est pas de l'économie, mais de l'autoritarisme politique.
• La Banque mondiale et le coût social du tabac (Communication présentée au séminaire Choix individuels et liberté, Université du Québec à Hull, 14 janvier 2000; en format PDF). Une analyse un peu technique de l'argumentation de la Banque mondiale et des théories économiques sous-jacentes.
• La fin de la monnaie (Le Figaro-Économie, 18 juin 1999). Richard Rahn soutient que la monnaie électronique sonnera la fin de l'intervention étatique dans la finance.
• L'économie comme science expérimentale (Le Figaro-Économie, 9 avril 1999). Un livre récent de Bergstrom et Miller suggère que la science économique se prête à des expériences de laboratoire présentant une grande valeur pédagogique.
• Les armes et la légitime défense (Le Figaro-Économie, 5 février 1999). La théorie économique de la dissuasion comme l'observation des faits montrent que la généralisation du port d'armes réduit la criminalité. Une recension du livre récent de John Lott.
• L'ordre caché de l'économie (Le Québécois libre, 14 mars 1998). L'économie n'a pas grand chose à voir avec l'argent, puisque l'on peut mesurer les prix relatifs des choses en termes de n'importe quoi.
• Théorie des probabilités et scrutins étatiques (Le Figaro-Économie, 4 septembre 1997). On ne vote pas pour exercer une influence, puisque la probabilité qu'un vote individuel change quelque chose est infinitésimale. Pourquoi alors les gens votent-il dans les scrutins étatiques?
• Le jeu et l'argent (Le Figaro-Économie, 20 février 1997). Comment un spéculateur international analyse les causes de son succès: une recension de Victor Niederhoffer, The Education of a Speculator (New York, Wiley, 1997). [Un texte semblable en langue anglaise a été publié dans la livraison de l'été 1997 de Discourse.]
• L'économie de la résistance fiscale (Le Figaro-Économie, 30 janvier 1997). Est-il vrai que l'évasion fiscale est économiquement inefficace et injuste pour les autres contribuables?
• Finances publiques: des solutions (La Presse, 15 janvier 1997). Comment on pourrait régler à court terme le problème des finances publiques du Québec sans porter préjudice aux drogué de l'État.
• L'économie de la guerre civile (Le Figaro-Économie, 21 novembre 1996). Les leçons de la guerre de Sécession américaine qui, comme l'écrit Jeffrey Hummel, a eu pour effet d'"émanciper les esclaves, d'asservir les hommes libres".
• Sommes-nous moralement tenus d'obéir aux lois? (Le Figaro-Économie, 12 septembre 1996). Ce qui est passé à peu près inaperçu jusqu'à tout récemment, c'est la montée de théories qui remettent radicalement en cause la légitimité de l'État. Un ouvrage récent de Jan Narveson et John Sanders sonde la nouvelle vague qui déferle sur la philosophie politique.
• Une économie sans efficacité sociale a-t-elle un sens? (Conférence prononcée dans le cadre d'un débat avec M. Ignacio Ramonet, Hull, 18 mars 1996). Une vision différente de l'économie, de la société de l'État.
• Divisibilité du territoire et nature de l'État (Exclusif à ce site). Comment le débat actuel sur la divisibilité d'un Québec séparé démontre l'absurdité de la conception naïve de l'État.
• Chaos et Anarchie (in Alain Albert [sous la direction de], Chaos and society, Amsterdam, IOS Press, 1995). À la lumière des théories de la complexité et de la théorie des jeux, un examen des problèmes que soulève la justification de l'État (format pdf, 270 k).

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Articles in other languages

• Ottawa ganha, mas canadenses perdem (December 2000)
• In difesa di Lai Changxing (November 2000)
• I costi sociali del tabacco: tutto fumo, niente arrosto (January 20, 1999
• Qualche parola a sostegno dell’evasione fiscale (January 31, 1994)

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Articles by, or with, other authors

• Pierre Lemieux et Jean-Luc Migué (avec la collaboration de Filip Palda), Évaluation économique de l'Étude d'impact sur le projet de loi sur le tabac proposé par le Ministre de la santé et des Services sociaux du Québec, Montréal, 26 mai 1998.