Cafe Hayek is a daily economics blog written by Don Boudreaux, a professor of economics at George Mason University. In the excerpts, the blog is described by host Bob Zadek as a subscription he reads every morning and recommends to his audience, and Boudreaux describes its purpose and audience in his own words. The blog is named for the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek Trump’s War on Trade (2019).
Description and authorship
Boudreaux is identified across the excerpts as a professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and as a blogger at Cafe Hayek Legalize Insider Trading (2009). In the 2009 episode, Zadek says Boudreaux had been chair of the economics department from 2001 until August of 2009, and calls the blog must-reading, giving the address www.cafehayek.com Legalize Insider Trading (2009). In the 2019 episode, Zadek introduces Boudreaux as a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center, a George Mason University economics professor, and the curator of Cafe Hayek, which he describes as a daily blog he cannot start his day without reading Trump’s War on Trade (2019).
Boudreaux himself, at the close of the 2019 episode, says he blogs every day at Cafe Hayek, that it is named after the great late Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek, and that it covers a lot of trade. He says he tries to write for a non-professional economic audience, avoiding jargon and doing no math, in order to help ordinary people understand basic facts about economics that he says are typically overlooked and discarded in public policy discussions Trump’s War on Trade (2019).
Promotion on The Bob Zadek Show
Zadek’s endorsements of the blog recur across the excerpts. In 2009 he tells listeners to write down the address and says that if they listen to the show and care about our issues, subscribing to Cafe Hayek is a must Legalize Insider Trading (2009). In the same episode he tells Boudreaux he has read the blog for the past year and does not miss a day Legalize Insider Trading (2009). In 2011 he calls Boudreaux my favorite blogger at Cafe Hayek and tells all of you to subscribe to his postings, which he calls a wonderful morning read The Second American Revolution – NOW (2011). In 2019 he calls it the incredibly readable Cafe Hayek, a daily blog he receives, and says it is a must-read for anyone with even a vague curiosity about economics specifically and the world at large Trump’s War on Trade (2019). At the end of that episode Zadek advises listeners that the blog should carry a Surgeon General’s warning that it is addictive, describing how following its links consumes his time until calls back up and clients are angry at him Trump’s War on Trade (2019).
Arguments associated with the blog
The excerpts connect Cafe Hayek to specific economic arguments advanced by Boudreaux on the show. In the 2009 episode on insider trading, Zadek cites Boudreaux’s article “Learning to Love Insider Trading” and asks him about insider non-trading — the idea that a person who plans to buy or sell a stock and cancels those plans on inside information profits by avoiding a bad investment, yet cannot be prosecuted because the government cannot prove intent. Boudreaux agrees that this raises what he calls a fundamental unfairness about the law itself, since the person who actively trades on inside information can be punished while the person who refrains cannot, though in his view none of it should be illegal Legalize Insider Trading (2009).
In the 2019 episode on trade, Boudreaux argues that tariffs function as taxes on American buyers, that raising tariffs unilaterally has historically caused foreign governments to retaliate rather than lower their own tariffs, and that President Trump is a mercantilist who wants Americans to export as much as possible and import as little as possible. He also argues that so-called currency manipulation by foreign governments, by keeping their currencies low relative to the dollar, benefits Americans by giving them more for their dollars Trump’s War on Trade (2019).
In the 2022 episode on Arizona education savings accounts, Zadek invokes an analogy he attributes to Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek about a decade earlier: readers were asked to imagine supermarkets all owned by the government, with shoppers required to patronize the supermarket in their zip code and told they could spend $100 a week there, and to compare the quality of that government-owned supermarket with compulsory customers to the present arrangement. Guest Matt Beienburg agrees that it is a good analogy Arizona Chooses Students Over Systems - Matt Beienburg (2022).
Across episodes
The excerpts show no development in the treatment of Cafe Hayek itself; it appears as a constant across episodes from 2009, 2011, 2019 and 2022, with Zadek’s promotion of the blog recurring and Boudreaux’s role as its author unchanged. What varies is the subject matter the blog is attached to — insider trading in 2009, the debt ceiling and jobs in 2011, trade in 2019, and school choice in 2022 — with Zadek advancing the recommendation each time and Boudreaux supplying the arguments.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state when Cafe Hayek was founded, how often it publishes beyond Boudreaux’s statement that he blogs every day, or whether anyone other than Boudreaux writes for it. They do not describe the blog’s readership, business model, or reception beyond Zadek’s own endorsements. They also do not state where George Mason University is located beyond the 2009 reference to Fairfax, Virginia, or give Boudreaux’s title at the Mercatus Center beyond senior fellow.