My Open Inquiry

Economics is a study of decision-making. For you and I, decision-making is simple: Which movie should I watch? Should I buy a new toaster or a new book? For governments, though, the question is much more complicated: How should the government step in during Recessions? How should we address the rising costs of education without increasing public debt? The question of how government should intervene to right economic failures is ubiquitous in Macroeconomics.  Too many times, however, these questions presuppose that government acts as a benevolent entity working for the public good. It's easy to point to a failure in the economy and conclude, "The government should fix this." However, unlike traditional economic theory, Public Choice Economics views government more realistically, as just another economic agent working towards their own selfish interests. Public Choice theory studies not what government should  do, as is the case in so many other subfields, but what governme...

Inequality is on the rise. In America, the top 0.1%’s share of wealth has risen from 7% in 1978 to 22% in 2012, [1], and the top 1%’s share of after-tax income rose from 9% in 1960 to 15% in 2019[2]. Mean while, the share of income of the bottom 90% has steadily declined. Yet, the issue of inequality is incredibly divisive among economists. This article explores two distinct perspectives held by economists regarding the significance of inequality and the actions that should be taken to address it. Some, like French economist Thomas Piketty, sound the alarm over the escalating income and wealth inequality in America. Piketty shows in his 2013 book Capital in the Twenty-First Century that wealth inequality allows firms to use accumulated wealth to engage in rent-seeking for personal benefit. Common examples of rent-seeking include monopolies or regulatory capture — firms or individuals wielding political connections to benefit themselves. The OECD furthers find that inequality has redu...