Hey readers from the future going back to the first page!

I’m Michael Tontchev, co-author with Milo King of our new blog geared toward economics and political theory. I’m an economics and computer science undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park, as well as a (fresh) columnist for Turning Point USA (see my articles here).

I wanted to start this blog to create an outlet to exchange ideas with the world of economics without needing to have anything well-polished (such as my articles for TPUSA). Some of my posts will simply be collections of links, others will be questions I have for economists and lay readers, while others still will be pieces of analysis that I’m tossing around in my head on which I’d appreciate input. This is also a way for me to coax more written thoughts from Milo, whom I consider to be a fairly intelligent and dedicated budding economist. (Hi Milo!)

As can be guessed from the title of our blog, I tend to be a market-oriented student of economics and I take the fundamental principles of economics seriously, with an emphasis on mutually-beneficial exchange. I have a few different sources of influence that will become more apparent as I write more, yet as much as possible I will try to seek out what’s true in positive economics regardless of the label under which it falls. Hence, on a Monday you might see me criticize neoclassical economics, while on the next Thursday I will vehemently defend it against its critics.

Our focus will often be on the price mechanism and its purpose in bringing order to a world of nearly-infinitely varied consumer wants and production possibilities.

My main interests lie in microeconomic theory, especially in industrial organization. However, I do enjoy learning about a wide variety of microeconomic topics, including labor economics, game theory, institutional economics, models of market failure, and public choice theory. Does that leave room for much of anything else? I suppose I should enjoy my days of being able to cast a broad net.