Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 60 of the hot-off-the-press book by my GMU Econ colleague Christopher Coyne and his frequent co-author, GMU Econ alum Abigail Hall, Austrian Economics: An Introduction:

Private markets contain mechanisms to guide economic actors. Property rights over the means of production incentivize owners to use resources efficiently because they reap the rewards for doing so and bear the costs of failing to do so. Prices emerge through market exchange and inform producers and consumers of the trade-offs they face in the purchase of inputs for production (producers) and in the price they pay for purchasing final outputs (consumers). Finally, profit and loss accounting informs producers about whether their decisions align with the underlying preferences of consumers.