If you’ve heard of economist Julian Simon before, it is likely because he came up with the idea of vouchers as a solution to airline overbooking (Simon 1968), or won a famous bet against biologist Paul Ehrlich (Sabin 2013). However, Simon should be of special interest to Catholic economists since the lion’s share of his…
A keynote talk from Bishop Oscar Cantu of Las Cruces headlined the discussion of the family and its role in the economy on April 30 and May 1, as economists, bishops, and other scholars gather in Chicago for the Lumen Christi Institute’s 7th annual Conference on Economics and Catholic Social Thought. The theme, “The Family and the Changing Economy”, was quite timely, falling squarely between the two October meetings of the 2014-15 Synod of Bishops on the Family.
The public event was opened by Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, and involved responses by CREDO economists Valerie Ramey (UC-San Diego) and William Evans (Notre Dame), as well Pierre-Andre Chiappori (Columbia), a noted expert on the economics of the family, and Christine Firer Hinze (Fordham), a social ethicist focusing on the family. …
I have been in several seminars and informal conversations where someone asks “what is subsidiarity, anyway?” In response, I have heard both knowledgeable lay people, priests, and bishops answer something to this effect: “subsidiarity is the principle that actions, when possible, should be taken at the lowest level,” or “it is basically decentralization.” In this…
After the score of reviews already written about Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century over the last few months, it is futile to rehearse the same arguments about the economics of the book yet one more time. Suffice it to refer the reader to the reviews of Debraj Ray, Larry Summers, or Per Krusell and Tony Smith. However, the readers of this newsletter may find of some interest to reflect not on the book itself, but on the reasons of its success and why those reasons point out to the challenges that Catholic economists need to address to help building a fair society in the twenty-first century. …