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The bright side of the trade war with China?

“This year marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most consequential anti-poverty programs in human history,” says Rev. Ben Johnson in this week’s Acton Commentary. “Now, there is evidence that its spillover effects may lift millions more out of dire need.” Continue Reading...

10 things political scientists know that we don’t

“If economics is the dismal science,” says Hans Noel, an associate professor at Georgetown University, “then political science is the dismissed science.” Most Americans—from pundits to voters—don’t think that political science has much to say about political life. Continue Reading...

What do stock markets do?

Note: This is post #89 in a weekly video series on basic economics. A company can raise money and create new investment by selling shares through an initial public offering (IPO). Continue Reading...

The Parable of the Long Spoons explains free markets

“How can we explain this emporiophobia—a fear of markets—given the overwhelming evidence that such institutions provide the greatest wealth, health and happiness for humankind?” When economics professor Paul Rubin asked that question he answered by saying that we need to shift the metaphor of markets from “competition” to “cooperation.” Continue Reading...

James V. Schall on Islam and the West

Pope Benedict XVI made an uncomfortable claim in his 2006 Regensburg address: contemporary Muslim terrorism may owe something to Islam’s conception of God. A year later, Father James V. Schall SJ wrote a book about the address which, as Acton Director of Research Samuel Gregg says, placed it in the wider context of a set of religious and philosophical challenges that many Westerners still can’t bring themselves to address: Over the past sixteen years, Schall has written numerous articles on this more general topic, the most important of which have been gathered together in his latest book, On Islam: A Chronological Record, 2002-2018. Continue Reading...