Economics for the Common Good

All researchers care about being recognized by their peers; usually they also want to have the best students, minimize their administrative duties, and increase their quality of life.

Populism” is hard to define because it takes many forms, but one common thread is the exacerbated eagerness to exploit the ignorance and prejudice of voters.

you pay a child a dollar to read a book, as some schools have tried, you not only create an expectation that reading makes you money, you also run the risk of depriving the child forever of the value of it. Markets are not innocent.
Michael Sandel2

some of the moral criticisms of the market are simply reformulations of the concept of “market failure,” which therefore demand public action but do not raise specifically ethical problems

When the flame of indignation burns brightly, people use moral arguments to impose their own value judgments and reduce the freedom of others.