Armen A. Alchian

Nov 30, 2024 | econlib.org | David Henderson |Armen A. Alchian |Harold Demsetz |Pierre Lemieux

For me, it was a great idea. Your mileage may vary. On his Substack yesterday, Arnold Kling posted yesterday about the pitfalls of going to graduate school in economics. It’s titled, appropriately, given the content, “Beware of Econ Grad School.”Arnold lists 3 possible motives for getting a Ph.D. in economics. Intellectual Curiosity. You like to explore ideas, you want to better understand how the economy works, and you want to come up with answers to puzzles and problems in the field of economics.

Jul 1, 2024 | econlib.org | Alexander William Salter |Armen A. Alchian

A Liberty Classics Book Review of Universal Economics, by Armen Alchian and William Allen. What do you do when economists stop believing in economics? The “dismal science” never merited its dreary epithet, but trends in economics education at the graduate and undergraduate levels could change that. Ph.D. courses are saturated with hyper-mathematical models that are as sophisticated as they are irrelevant, as well as statistical pyrotechnics that amount to little more than brute description.

Apr 20, 2024 | econlib.org | Armen A. Alchian

[An updated version of this article can be found at Property Rights in the 2nd edition.] One of the most fundamental requirements of a capitalist economic system—and one of the most misunderstood concepts—is a strong system of property rights. For decades social critics in the United States and throughout the Western world have complained that "property" rights too often take precedence over "human" rights, with the result that people are treated unequally and have unequal opportunities.

Aug 30, 2023 | oll.libertyfund.org | Armen A. Alchian

Armen Alchian discusses his contribution to economics as the founder of the “UCLA tradition” of economic thought with its emphasis of the rational, self-seeking behavior of individuals. Watch the video and explore related resources at Econlib Videos. The Intellectual Portrait Series: A Conversation with Armen A. Alchian (Iindianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000).