Elasticity! Why cutting gas taxes won’t lower prices, but will fatten oil companies

When Clinton and McCain proposed cutting gas taxes, I asked my environmental economics students, “So how much do you think drivers will save?” The students diligently Googled the numbers. “Well,” said one, “the federal gas tax is 18.4 cents and the average state tax is 28.6 cents, so that’s 47 cents a gallon drivers will . . . → Read More: Elasticity! Why cutting gas taxes won’t lower prices, but will fatten oil companies

Where Did The Wealth of Nations Come From?

Adam Smith (1723-1790) published The Wealth of Nations in 1776, also the year of the American Revolution. Both the Wealth of Nations and the Declaration of Independence sprang from a context, the so-called “Enlightenment.”

The Enlightenment in turn has a history, traced in the lectures of Alan Charles Kors, on “The Birth of the Modern . . . → Read More: Where Did The Wealth of Nations Come From?