The death of former mainland Chinese premier Zhu Rongji on August 12 has renewed discussion of his economic legacy. Zhu, who served as premier from 1998 to 2003 after previously overseeing much of mainland China’s economic policy as vice premier, was one of the principal architects of the market-oriented reforms of the 1990s. He restructured state-owned enterprises, strengthened the central government’s fiscal capacity, promoted housing reform, and used mainland China’s accession to the World Trade Organization as a means of exposing domestic firms to greater competition.
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An Economist’s Reflections on the Recent Eviction Case Involving an 82-Year-Old Woman in Madrid
In recent days, the temporary suspension of the eviction of an 82-year-old woman in Madrid has attracted considerable media attention. As an economist, I believe cases like this deserve careful analysis based on the facts, rather than solely on the emotions they inevitably provoke.
Continue readingWhy Western Europe Is Falling Behind: Welfare States, Interventionism, and the Loss of Economic Vitality
To say that Western Europe is “poor” would be inaccurate and intellectually dishonest. Compared with developing countries, Western Europe remains wealthy. But that is not the correct benchmark. The real question is whether Western Europe has reached the level of dynamism, innovation, and economic vitality that its history, institutions, and human capital should allow. On this standard, the answer is increasingly no.
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.
Continue readingWhy Milei Won Argentina’s 2025 Legislative Election
Argentina’s legislative election of 26 October 2025 was not merely a midterm. It was a referendum on whether the country would continue along Javier Milei’s path of fiscal stabilization, deregulation, and market reform, or drift back toward the Peronist cycle of inflation, controls, subsidies, and policy reversals. The electorate chose continuity. Milei’s La Libertad Avanza (LLA) won about 40.8% of the national vote, became the fastest-growing force in Congress, and secured the one-third threshold in the lower house needed to help sustain presidential vetoes and strengthen his bargaining position for the second half of his term.
That result was not an accident, nor can it be reduced to charisma or media theater. It reflected a harder political fact: by late 2025, enough Argentines concluded that Milei’s policies, however painful, were producing visible macroeconomic improvement, while the opposition still represented the memory of chronic inflation, fiscal disorder, and repeated policy whiplash. Some analysts tied Milei’s stronger-than-expected result to fear of renewed turmoil if austerity and reform were abandoned; polling analysts likewise said many voters were willing to give the government more time precisely because they did not want to relive earlier crises.
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