Categorywolhan

This blog post examines the insights provided by the instrumental variable approach and colonial mortality analysis used to clarify the causal relationship between institutions and growth.   The 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Acemoglu and his two colleagues for demonstrating that institutions are the cause of economic growth. The attempt to locate the cause of growth in...

This blog post examines how the clarity of law and the limits of interpretation both clash and harmonize. It focuses particularly on the extent to which judicial interpretation can be justified.   Following the French Revolution, the conviction took firm hold that laws must be clearly written to eliminate room for arbitrary judicial interpretation. Within this modern legal framework, laws...

This blog post examines why constitutional mechanisms alone are insufficient for American democracy and analyzes how informal norms like mutual tolerance and institutional self-restraint have sustained the political order.   The U.S. Constitution establishes a presidential system based on the principle of checks and balances among branches of government. This design aims to prevent any...

This blog post examines how Cartesian rationalism defined nature as an external entity, thereby reinforcing an anthropocentric worldview, and explores the significance of this ideology within contemporary environmental crisis discourse.   The contemporary environmental crisis is not only a matter of human survival but also a factor that threatens the humanistic values realized since the...

This blog post delves deeply into how the role traditionally performed by intellectuals is being reinterpreted within a digital environment where the power of collective intelligence is rapidly expanding, and whether its value still holds meaning today.   The Dreyfus Affair, which occurred in France in the early 20th century, shed new light on the group of intellectuals and became an...

This blog post delves into the historical debate over whether nebulae are stellar birthplaces or other galaxies beyond our own, and details the astronomical discoveries that resolved this question.   The size of the universe has long been a subject of human fascination. To determine it, astronomers sought to measure the distances to distant stars. In the late 18th century, Herschel made the...

This blog post deeply examines the philosophical reasons and significance behind Kant’s thorough exclusion of human contingency—such as emotions, inclinations, and social conditions—in establishing universal morality.   In modern Western ethics, Kant’s moral philosophy and Hegel’s ethical theory are represented by the concepts of morality and humanity, respectively, and...

This blog post examines why financial crises are difficult to explain with a single cause. It analyzes how self-fulfilling expectations, risk-seeking behavior, bank runs, and excessive overheating become intricately intertwined to trigger crises.   Despite extensive research on past financial crises, consensus on their causes often remains elusive. This stems partly from the complex...

This blog post examines why republicanism rejects arbitrary rule and makes the common good its core value. It also explores how civic virtue and constitutional order enable self-governance.   Republicanism is an ideology that seeks to realize self-governance by excluding rule by arbitrary power in communal life, based on citizens’ political participation in pursuit of the common good...

This blog post examines how investigative reporting shapes preconceptions about trials and explores where freedom of expression and the defendant’s right to due process conflict, seeking ways to achieve harmony.   Most media coverage of criminal cases relies on information obtained from investigative agencies and tends to focus on the investigative phase before indictment...