Economics is a two-faced discipline. It claims to be a science, describing the world without preconception or value judgment. The reality is that descriptive economics has been shaped by a framework of assumptions geared more to its normative message than to its pretensions. The self-interested individual--who rationally calculates how to achieve…

The story of Bernard Madoff rivals outrageous fiction. It was astonishing that this seemingly kindly, respectable financier, a pioneer in electronic trading, a founding partner in the Nasdaq exchange, turned out to have been running a $65-billion Ponzi scheme that victimized country-club elites, middle-class retirees, foundations, universities,…

Real-estate markets are almost as volatile as stock markets. Prices of agricultural land, of commercial real estate, and of homes and condominiums have gone through a series of huge bubbles, as if people never learned from the previous ones. Such events--in particular the recent housing bubble--are driven by what John Maynard Keynes called animal…

Back when markets hinged on local contacts, product standardization wasn't a concern. When higher education was thought to be mainly about educating citizens, standardization wasn't much of a concern, either. Standardization has come later to higher education than to other commodities markets, but it has arrived. As with other commodities, unit…