Free Market Economics — Season 1, Episode 5: Chicago School
Documentary, Talk • 61 min • 1 season, 10 episodes
Episode synopsis
In lecture five, we learn about the Chicago School of Economics through the contributions of Frank Knight, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Gary Becker, Ronald Coase, and Sam Peltzman. We examine Knight’s distinction between risk and uncertainty, Friedman’s work on monetary theory and the military draft, Stigler’s research on minimum wages and regulation, and Becker’s analysis of discrimination economics. The lecture concludes with Coase’s work on externalities and property rights and Peltzman’s research on regulation, highlighting how the Chicago School transformed economics through empirical analysis rather than abstract theory.
About Free Market Economics
In Free Market Economics, Dr. David Henderson guides us through ten foundational pillars of economic wisdom and the major schools of thought—Austrian, Chicago, UCLA, and Public Choice. Along the way, we explore how markets coordinate through decentralized knowledge, property rights, and voluntary exchange, and why central planning so often falls short. Drawing on vivid historical cases—from the Soviet economic collapse to West Germany’s postwar miracle—the course brings core ideas like subjective value, spontaneous order, and entrepreneurial discovery to life. Ultimately, it shows how economic freedom and open inquiry fuel innovation and prosperity, while government intervention frequently produces unintended consequences and inefficiencies.