Acton Institute Director of Research – Samuel Gregg Jorge Bergoglio, the Argentine Pope, has led the Catholic Church for four years. He released two encyclicals, Evangelli gaudium(2013) andLaudato si’(2015). Samuel Gregg recently sat down with Anthony Gill of the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion for an in depth discussion on Pope Francis’ encyclicals among a few other topics such as Argentina and how Juan Perón may have inspired the Pope on his views of economics. You can listen to...

When es to government programs for redistributing e, nothing is quite as malevolently effective as state lotteries. Every year state lotteries redistribute the e of mostly poor Americans (who spend between 4-9 percent of their e on lottery tickets) to a handful of other citizens—and tothe state’s coffers. This video by Crackedshows what a lottery ad would be like if the government-run business was forced to be honest:“The only reason it stays legal isbecause the government is the profiteer of...

Does the theological conservatism of a church help or hinder its chances for growth? And what, if any, impact might that have on its social and political witness? In a new research study, sociologist David Haskell and historian Kevin Flatt explore the first of these questions. Using survey data from 22 mainline Protestant churches across southern Ontario, the study concludes that “the theological conservatism of both attendees and clergy emerged as important factors in predicting church growth.” “Our data demonstrate...

Few questions loom as large for parents and students these days as the question of how to afford a college education. College costs have been rising for decades, and alltoo often, students rely heavily on student loans and graduate with significant debt loads that they spend years paying off. Alex Chediak, professor of engineering and physics at California Baptist University, has tackled this question and provided parents and students with an invaluable guide in his bookBeating the College Debt Trap,...

Note: This is the secondin a series on developing a Christian mind in business school. You can find the intro posthere. When people ask me what business school was like, I’m tempted to say, “A lot like a medieval university.” Unfortunately, parison makes people think b-school is dark, musty, and full of monks—which is not quite what I mean. In medieval universities, the three subjects that were considered the first three stages of learning were the trivium: grammar, logic, and...

“Why are you going to business school?” my friend asked, with some concern, “It seems like such a waste of your time. Why not study history or philosophy or the Great Books or something you’d enjoy.” It was a good question. I mitting myself to spending two years going to school full-time (while working full-time) to get a degree in a subject—business administration—in which I didn’t feel particularly passionate. But I felt that God was calling me to go to...

Economists disagree about the effects of raising the minimum wage—but not as much as you might imagine. Almost all of the serious debate is whether an increase of 20 percent or less will have a detrimental or negligible effect on workers and the economy. Some economists, especially those who think the minimum wage should be $0, contentthat any increase is harmful. Others think the current federal minimum wage could be bumped up by 20 percent before it would lead to...

Note: This is post #16 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. Ten years ago this week, Apple unveiled the iPhone. It’s a product that was designed in California and produced by thousands of people all over the world. How exactly is that process coordinated? How do those people now how much of each part to make? In this video by Marginal Revolution University, economist Alex Tabarrok explains how voluntary coordination and markets make possible such modern-day miracles as...

If President-elect Donald Trump wants to make America great again, he needs to find a way to reduce the federal debt. Samuel Gregg, in a new article at the Stream, explains why this is so important. There’s much at stake if no action is taken to reduce the federal debt: On December 30, 2016, the United States’ official publicdebtwas $19.97 trillion. It’s almost doubled since 2008. It also exceeds the size of America’s economy in nominal GDP in 2016 ($18.56...

Are you a parent or thinking of ing one? If so, the federal governmenthas a new report that will cause your bank account to gasp. According to the Department of Agriculture, the estimated cost of raising a child from birth through age 17 is $233,610, or as much as almost $14,000 annually. That’s the average for a e couple with two children (the cost is more in urban areas and a bit cheaper in rural locales). While this may sound...