Robert Balthazar. The Discrete Charm of Economic Growth. Part I: The Bilinguals; Part II: The Making of an Overriding Collective Preference (2016). At the outset Balthazar briefly summarizes his own intellectual journey as an economist, looking back on his earlier assumption that the economy as a whole was the spontaneous result of innumerable interacting trends…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Grant Mincy‘s “Political Governance and Natural Boundaries” read by Christopher King and edited by Nick Ford. What is imperiling the desert is human domination of the landscape. Planning, zoning and development ultimately seek economic growth. There are of course guidelines and restrictions, town hall meetings and financial statements, but at the end of…

The vast Sonoran Desert of the American Southwest lies in the political territories of California and Arizona and reaches south into Mexico. Its arid landscape is home to human industry and a complex ecosystem full of unique flora and fauna, mesas, canyons, arched rocks and other processes of deep time. It is thus governed by two competing forces: Political…