That is the “broken windows fallacy”: If a window is broken, the need to replace it will create business for the glass producers, employment for the repair personnel, ...

The broken window fallacy is used to emphasise the idea of opportunity cost and the need to look beyond the obvious to find the true, often unintended, economic consequences of an action.

William Smith explains the parable of the broken window and explains how money spent to replace a broken window could have been spent elsewhere. He likens that to aid to Ukraine and Israel.

The idea of broken-window economics, or the broken window fallacy, is credited to a 19th-century French economist and parliamentarian, Frédéric Bastiat. He used an imaginary shopkeeper, James ...

The broken windows theory states that visible signs of disorder and misbehavior in an environment encourage further disorder and misbehavior, leading to serious crimes. The principle was developed ...

Suppose that a strong earthquake were to destroy a sizable part of a city. The rebuilding process would involve massive investment, procurement of materials and services, and employment. But can ...