One of the most persistent problems in modern political economy is the growing separation between academic knowledge and practical experience. Universities produce increasing numbers of specialists who are highly trained in theory, statistical techniques, and academic writing. Yet many have limited exposure to entrepreneurship, finance, business decision-making, public policy implementation, or the economic realities faced by ordinary citizens.
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Reflections from the 10th Austrian Economics Meeting Europe in Angers
From May 28 to May 30, I had the privilege of participating in the 10th Austrian Economics Meeting Europe, held in the historic city of Angers, France. Events like this remind me why academic exchange remains one of the most important elements of intellectual development.
Continue readingHow Long Should It Take to Start a Business? Economic Freedom, Bureaucracy, and the Jobs Spain Never Sees
How long should a citizen have to wait before being allowed to create a firm? The question sounds administrative, but it is fundamentally economic and political. A new firm is not merely a registration in a government database. It can become a workplace, a source of income for a family, a competitor that forces established firms to improve, or the first opportunity for someone who has been unemployed to enter the labor market. When the state makes entry unnecessarily slow, expensive, or uncertain, the cost is therefore borne not only by the entrepreneur standing at the administrative counter. It is also borne by people whose jobs, wages, products, and opportunities may never come into existence.
Continue readingWho Really Pays the Corporate Tax? Investment, Jobs, and the Politics of Taxing Firms
A corporate tax is legally paid by a corporation, but a corporation is not a person standing apart from society with an independent capacity to bear economic pain. A firm is a network of workers, owners, consumers, suppliers, and investments. When government taxes corporate profits, the legal liability may appear on the company’s tax return, but the economic burden can be distributed through lower returns to owners, weaker investment, lower wages, fewer jobs, or higher prices. This is why corporate taxation is not a technical argument about whether one sympathizes with “business.” It is a question about capital formation and, ultimately, about the opportunities available to ordinary people.
Continue readingEntrepreneurs, Not the State, Are the Driving Force of the Market Economy
In Human Action, Ludwig von Mises made a claim that remains deeply unsettling to statist thinking even today: the true driving force of the market economy is not the state, not bureaucratic planning, and not public authority—but entrepreneurs. This assertion is not rhetorical. It is a theoretical conclusion rooted in the logic of human action, the functioning of the price system, and the irreducible uncertainty of the future.
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