There are four ways to get what you want: make, gift, take, or trade.

Institutions change the payoffs to those four ways. Call it “mere economics.”

Nearly everything I think about starts there: a few simple ideas and a curiosity about how far they can take me.

That approach runs through both my scholarly work and my writing for general readers, including skeptics of the economic point of view.

I am an Associate Professor of Economics at Grove City College.