On the latest episode of my American Institute for Economic Research podcast, Econception, I talk about three Christmas traditions: charity, presents, and government spending bills.

For the first of those, I talked to Christian Britschgi of Reason about how local governments are using zoning rules to punish churches for caring for the homeless. He has written extensively about how municipalities abuse their zoning rules to restrict economic freedom in all sorts of ways. We discuss how widespread the problem is and what can be done to fix it.

The end of the calendar year yet again meant a last-minute spending fight in Congress. I explain the difference between the debt ceiling and a government shutdown, and whether either of those mechanisms are even necessary.

To wrap up the episode, I talk about how the market system allows people to order and deliver presents for Christmas without any central planning. It’s a great example of Hayek’s insight that people still plan in a market system, but their planning is decentralized and coordinated with prices rather than top-down control.

For the Paper of the Episode, Christian selected “Roofs or Ceilings?” by Milton Friedman and George Stigler. This early publication of the Foundation for Economic Education helped launch the free-market movement in the U.S.

Please listen and subscribe to the podcast here, and merry Christmas!