Note: This is post #37 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. What can the flu teach us about economics? In this video, Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution University explains how vaccines produce positive externalities that help people stay healthy. When someone receives the vaccine, they pass along the positive benefits of the vaccine to others, generating positive externalities (If you find the pace of the videos too slow, I’d mend watching them at 1.5 to 2 times the...

“Main street isn’t main street anymore. No one seems to need us like they did before.” Americans continue to face the violent winds of economic change, whether stemming from technology, trade, or globalization. Those pains have been particularly pronounced in rural areas, which the Wall Street Journal recently proclaimed as being the “new inner city” due to accelerating declines in key measures of “socioeconomic well-being.” In response to these trends, progressives and populists have been quick to turn to a...

On Sunday, France held the first round of its parliamentary elections. After the June 11, 2017, the nation is poised to usher in a new era of French political history. How is French Parliament divided? The French Parliament is divided into two houses: the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale) and the Senate (Sénat). The general public votes to elect members of the National Assembly, known as députés. The Senate is elected separately by grands électeurs, such as local elected officials. The...

Honoré Daumier (French, 1808 – 1879 ), Alex. Ch. Henri de Tocqueville, 1849, lithograph, Rosenwald Collection Samuel Gregg, research director at the Acton Institute, recently published areview onthe new translation ofAlexis de Tocqueville’sRecollections: The French Revolution of 1848 and Its Aftermathin which Tocqueville, the “quintessential man of theory,” gets dirty aboutthepolitics of the French Revolution. Why would the man whowrote bothDemocracy in America(1835, 1840) andThe Old Regime and the Revolution(1856) write an explicit reflectionon hispolitical interactions? To answer, Gregg directly...

On Friday afternoon, Acton Institute Director of Programs Samuel Gregg joins guest host Paul Kengor on Ave Maria Radio’s Kresta in the Afternoon to discuss the shocking results of last week’ssnap UK elections that saw Theresa May and the Tories lose their majority in the UK Parliament. Gregg looks at the coalitions likely to form as a result and the impact the election will have on the ing Brexit negotiations. You can listen to the interview via the audio player...

The UK’s 2017 general election: What you need to know. The future of UK politics, Brexit negotiations, and transatlantic values has been thrust into uncertainty following the UK snap election on Thursday night. The hung Parliament will require a coalition, but the Conservative Party’s most likely partner will seek concessions on Brexit and possibly on social issues. Here are the facts you need to know: Theresa May lost seats but will remain prime minister – for now. Prime Minister Theresa...

Throughout our political discourse, we continue to hear critiques of free trade from left and right, each of them ultimately aiming to prod us closer toan abstract notion of so-called “fair” or “fairer” trade. Evenwhen the value of free trade is recognized, such admissions tend to be quickly panied by fuzzy, convoluted qualifiers, such as “free trade must also be fair.” It’s a refrain that sounds agreeable enough on the surface, yet it bears an underlying ambivalence toward freedom and...

In April the Trump administration released the president’s tax-reform proposal (see: Explainer: What you should know about President Trump’s tax reform plan). The plan was merely an outline and was short on details. Republicans in Congress, though, have released proposals that include three major policy changes: (1) increasing the value of the standard deduction to $11,000 for individuals and $22,000 for married couples, (2) extending the charitable tax deduction to non-itemizers, and (3) decreasing the highest marginal tax rate to...