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Economic analysis and principles
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"In countries where money is plentiful, all other things being equal, a greater quantity of money is given for goods and services than where money is scarce. Whence it follows that money itself, like any other commodity, is worth more where it is scarce than where it is abundant."
menu_book Comentario Resolutorio de Cambios (Commentary on Exchange)
View Full Quote"We see by experience that in France, where money is scarcer than in Spain, bread, wine, cloth, and labour are worth much less. And even in Spain, before the discovery of the Indies, goods and labour were much cheaper than they are today, for the reason that there was then much less money."
menu_book Comentario Resolutorio de Cambios (Commentary on Exchange)
View Full Quote"A sum of money today is worth more than the same sum to be received in the future. This is not only the common estimation of men, but is grounded in reason: present goods are available for present needs; future goods must be awaited, and in the meantime their possession is uncertain."
menu_book Comentario Resolutorio de Cambios (Commentary on Exchange)
View Full Quote"In the economic sphere, an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects unfold only subsequently; they are not seen. Between a bad and a good economist, this is the whole difference: one confines himself to the visible effect; the other takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen."
menu_book That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen
View Full QuoteView Full Quote"There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government."
"Economics is not a thing of the past, nor is it a thing of the future. It is the science of every kind of human action. Choosing determines all human decisions. In making his choices man determines both his scale of values and the means he employs for the attainment of the ends he is aiming at. Thus economics, as the general science of acting man, reaches far beyond the boundaries of economic science as ordinarily circumscribed."
menu_book Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
View Full Quote"When buyers and sellers are free to act, and neither fraud nor force is present, the price that results from their voluntary agreement is just — for justice in commerce consists in the freedom of exchange, not in the equality of the things exchanged."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
View Full Quote"If a merchant knows that goods will soon be cheaper in a particular place, or that supply will increase, he is not obliged to inform buyers of this. It is not unjust to sell at the current market price, since the price is set by common estimation, not by future conditions."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
View Full Quote"A thing is worth as much as it can be sold for without fraud or coercion. The value of goods is not determined by their intrinsic nature, but by the estimation which men commonly put upon them — and this estimation varies with time, place, and circumstance."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
View Full Quote"Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct."
menu_book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
View Full Quote"The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it."
menu_book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
View Full Quote"The just price of things is not determined by the nature or quality of things in themselves, but by the common estimation of men — that is, by what buyers and sellers commonly agree to give and receive in exchange."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
View Full Quote"To sell below the just price is loss to the seller; to buy above it is loss to the buyer. The prince cannot without injustice compel men to sell below the common price, for this is to force them to give what is theirs to others without compensation."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
View Full Quote"The pattern is: (1) The anointed assert that there is some grave danger or crisis. (2) The anointed propose some course of action to deal with it. (3) Evidence that the proposed course of action has made things worse is either ignored or explained away. (4) The anointed proceed as if the policy were working, blaming any remaining problems on the inadequacy of commitment to the policy."
menu_book The Vision of the Anointed
View Full QuoteView Full Quote"There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs. And you try to get the best trade-off you can get. That's all you can hope for."
auto_stories Books
Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy
Comprehensive introduction to economic principles written for the general public, explaining how markets work and the effects of various economic p...
Read MoreComentario Resolutorio de Cambios (Commentary on Exchange)
Martín de Azpilcueta's 1556 treatise on monetary exchange, containing the earliest clear statement of what would become the quantity theory of mone...
Read MoreDe Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Luis de Molina's six-volume masterwork on justice and law, completed in 1593. Molina's most enduring economic contribution is his clear formulation...
Read MoreDe Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Domingo de Soto's systematic treatment of justice and law, published in 1553. Soto develops a rigorous natural law analysis of property rights, the...
Read MoreHuman Action: A Treatise on Economics
Ludwig von Mises' magnum opus and the most comprehensive systematic treatment of economics from the Austrian School perspective. Mises develops pra...
Read MoreKnowledge and Decisions
Analysis of how knowledge is used in economic decision-making, examining the role of prices, incentives, and institutions in coordinating dispersed...
Read MoreThe Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of Our Coal-Mines
Landmark work in which Jevons examined Britain's dependence on coal and argued that improvements in fuel efficiency would not reduce consumption bu...
Read Moreperson Authors
psychology Concepts
Four Ways to Spend Money
Milton Friedman's framework describing four ways money can be spent, each with different incenti...
Learn MoreThe Broken Window Fallacy
A logical error in economic reasoning first described by Frédéric Bastiat in his 1850 essay Learn More
The Cantillon Effect
The Cantillon Effect is an economic concept explaining how newly created money does not affect everyone equally. When new money enters the economy,...
Learn MoreJevons Paradox
The observation that technological improvements in the efficiency of resource use tend to increase, rather than decrease, the total consumption of ...
Learn MoreThe Pareto Principle
The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes. This co...
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