Author Archives: F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Did the late Milton Friedman betray the ideals of Adam Smith when he concluded in his now-famous 1970 New York Times Magazine essay that a business firm’s only ethical obligation to society is to maximize its profits as long as … Continue reading →

All three European monarchs were put on trial by their political enemies for supposed acts of treason: Mary, Queen of Scots in the Elizabethan Era (1586), Charles I in post-civil war England (1649), and Louis XVI during the height of … Continue reading →

Wait, what?! This imposing statue of the great Adam Smith was first unveiled in Edinburgh, next to St Giles Cathedral, on 4 July 2008 (see here).

In honor of the upcoming ten-year anniversary of this blog (5 July 2023), I am reposting two of my blog posts on the economics of popcorn prices at movie theaters–one from 2017 (link #1 below); the other from 2019 (link … Continue reading →

One of my favorite talks at Glasgow University’s “Adam Smith 300” conference was “Adam Smith–the first true liberal” by Professor Deirdre McCloskey. Among other things, three observations she made stood out for me: 1. for McCloskey, Adam Smith is something … Continue reading →

Although 2023 is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Adam Smith, what really matters are his beautiful ideas and metaphors, such as the invisible hand and the impartial spectator. Pictured below is an original edition of Smith’s first book … Continue reading →

Yesterday, Nobel laureate Sir Angus Deaton delivered a lecture on “Economic failure or failure of economics?” (see here) as part of the University of Glasgow’s Adam Smith Tercentenary Week. In brief, the first half of his lecture sounded a lot … Continue reading →

Today I will be presenting my work-in-progress “Adam Smith through the Eyes of Horace Walpole” at the University of Glasgow. (As an aside, in preparation for my talk I made significant revisions and corrections to my draft and posted the … Continue reading →