AUSTIN – Today, the Texas Public Policy Foundation formally released “Violate at Your Own Risk: The Immutability of Economic Laws,” the first paper in the Foundation’s Thinking Economically project.
“Just like the laws of physics, economics laws are simply descriptions of reality. Scarcity can be no more ignored than gravity,” Dr. Arthur Laffer wrote in the project’s introductory paper. “Policymakers who think they can determine the proper price of a good better than the market will create no less a disaster than the captain of an ocean liner who believes his engines will allow him to pay no heed to momentum.”
Thinking Economically is a project of the Texas Public Policy Foundation designed to provide a basic economic education for policymakers, the media, and the general public. In this way, the Foundation hopes to highlight the intersection of economics and public policy, and the importance of “thinking economically” when making policy decisions.
The author of the Thinking Economically series is Dr. Arthur Laffer, an internationally renowned economist and a member of President Ronald Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board for both of his two terms. TIME magazine honored Laffer as one of the “20th Century’s Greatest Minds” for his invention of the Laffer Curve, which provided the impetus for the tax-cutting movement that has swept the world over the last three decades.
“Dr. Laffer has left his imprint on economic and public policy in the United States and around the world,” said Foundation President Brooke Rollins. “We are honored and proud to work with him to present this series of economics lessons.
“As Dr. Laffer is quick to point out, economics is neither Republican nor Democrat, and policymakers from both parties have misunderstood economics with disastrous consequences,” Rollins continued. “We hope that presenting these basic economics lessons will better inform the discussion on public policy and highlight the importance of truly ‘thinking economically.'”
“Fundamental economic laws are really just codified common sense,” Laffer explained. “It’s surprising how much insight we can gain from carefully thinking through the implications of particular views on how the world works.”
“Violate at Your Own Risk” is available for download from the Foundation’s website, www.TexasPolicy.com. Subsequent papers in the series will be released each month.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.
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