Blog
State Attorneys General Launch Antitrust Investigations, Forget ‘Relevant Market’ Fallacy
Facebook and Google are facing separate antitrust investigations from publicity-seeking state attorneys general from both parties. New York’s Democratic attorney general is heading a joint…
Blog
Trump Tariff Costs to Outweigh Benefits from Deregulation
Early in the Trump administration, a series of executive orders slowed the growth of new regulations and removed some existing rules. From the start of…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The UK parliament will soon be suspended for a five-week period, something the U.S. Congress should consider emulating as often as possible. Over in the…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
A humorous diplomatic row over Greenland was not the only news of the week, with China tariffs, divisive rhetoric, and recession fears also putting in…
Blog
Antitrust Basics: Think Long Term, Not Just Short Term
Moore’s Law states that computing power doubles every year and a half or so. An antitrust case against IBM, by contrast, lasted for 13 years,…
News Release
China Tariff Retaliation Shows Failure of Trump Policy
On news that China plans to raise tariffs on Sep. 1 and Dec. 15, respectively, in retaliation for President Trump's recent increase, Competitive Enterprise Institute…
Blog
Antitrust Basics: Corruption and Rent-Seeking
Rent-seeking is economics jargon for chasing after unfair special favors from government. Businesses and individuals have a large menu of rent-seeking options to choose from,…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week was the Federal Register’s busiest of the year, with its 3,075 pages almost tripling a normal week’s count. A new economically significant regulation…
The Washington Times
Trump’s Tariff Delay on China Eases Christmas Worries, Sends Markets Higher
The Washington Times cites Senior Fellow Ryan Young on tariffs: Ryan Young, a senior fellow at the free market Competitive Enterprise Institute, said…
The Washington Post
Trump Finally Acknowledges His Tariffs Could Hit Consumers
The Washington Post cites Senior Fellow Ryan Young on tariffs: “The decision to delay new tariffs on Chinese-made toys, smartphones, laptops and other…
News Release
CEI Experts: Delay on China Tariffs Shows Real Burden Is on Consumers
On news today that the US Trade Representative will delay new tariffs on some consumer items until Dec. 15, as well as exclude some products from tariffs.
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Rumblings of a “Navarro recession” are growing louder, and the 2019 Federal Register will likely crack the 40,000-page mark early this week. Rulemaking agencies published…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
In a pre-recess Parthian shot, the Senate passed a massive new spending bill that would increase federal spending by $320 billion over two years and…
News Release
Tariffs Fail to Move China, Congress Should Revoke President Trump’s Trade Authority
Tariffs fail to move China, Congress Should Revoke Pres. Trump’s Trade Authority…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress has adjourned for its August recess, so the republic is safe for another month. Rulemaking agencies are still on the job, however, and published…
Inside Sources
More Than Jobs – the Minimum Wage’s Many Tradeoffs
The House of Representatives will likely vote this week on a plan to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2024. Much…
Blog
House Passes ‘Raise the Wage’ Act
The Raise the Wage Act, which passed the House on Thursday, would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025. The bill now moves…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Washington, D.C.’s flash flood was followed up by a heat wave; this week could bring even worse during Congress’ final week in session before the…
News Release
Minimum Wage Hike Passed by House Democrats Would Put Millions Out of Work
House Democrats today passed a federal minimum wage hike, $7.25 to $15 per hour, though with slim expected chance of gaining Senate passage. Politics aside,…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Washington, D.C. was hit by a flash flood, but agencies were still able to publish new regulations ranging from electric program procedures to Fort Ord…
Blog
Antitrust Basics: Regulatory Uncertainty
Antitrust laws are not enforced to the letter. They are a matter of regulators’ and judges’ discretion. If they were applied literally, every business transaction…
Blog
Antitrust Basics: Rule of Reason Standard vs. Consumer Welfare Standard
Regulators have used two different standards to judge antitrust cases over the last century or so: the “rules of reason” standard and the “consumer welfare”…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It was a four-day week for the federal government as the nation celebrated Independence Day. Meanwhile, agencies published new regulations ranging from the Paper and…
Blog
Antitrust Basics: Misleading Herfindahl-Hirschman Index
Market concentration is the most common reason for antitrust intervention. If a company has too large a market share, it can abuse that market power…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The 2019 Federal Register broke 30,000 pages last week, the Democratic presidential candidates had their first debates, and the U.S. and Chinese governments prepared for…
Blog
Antitrust Basics: Relevant Market Fallacy
If a firm is charged with having market power, the question naturally arises: in which market? Does Facebook have a monopoly over social networking, especially…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Wednesday, the day before the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 35th anniversary gala dinner, saw no new final regulations published in the Federal Register. This may be…
Blog
Introducing Antitrust Basics
Often, a drips-and-drabs approach to learning an issue over a period of time is as effective as a single intense cram session. To that end,…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week, a Canadian team won the NBA championship for the first time, while an American team won the Stanley Cup. This week brings us…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
While the administration is so far keeping to its one-in, two-out policy for proposed rules, new trade and antitrust policies are likely to increase net…
The Washington Times
Kamala Harris Outlines Plan To Penalize Companies That Fail To Close Gender ‘Pay Gaps’
The Washington Times cites Senior Fellow Ryan Young on a legislative plan to penalize companies for gender pay disparties. Ryan Young, a senior…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Trump threatened a new tariff on all Mexican goods, potentially scuttling the NAFTA/USMCA agreement. My colleague Wayne Crews went through the new Spring 2019…
Blog
Addressing the Gender Pay Gap: Culture, Not Legislation
Gender discrimination is a complex problem with a complex solution.
Blog
Trump Threatens up to 25 Percent Tariff on Mexican Goods, Jeopardizes NAFTA/USMCA
Things have been moving quickly on President Trump’s top legislative priority, the NAFTA/USMCA trade agreement. The key was rescinding steel and aluminum tariffs against Canada…
Conservative Commandos Radio Show
“Income Inequality” Needs a Conservative Solution?? Bernie Sanders is Crazy to Say Criminals Should Be Allowed to Vote!! Case against the Use of Antitrust Law!!
Senior Fellow Ryan Young joined Conservative Commandos Radio Show to discuss the case against antitrust law. Ryan Young, Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The number of new final regulations this year topped 1,000 last Tuesday, and President Trump and Congress entered Memorial Day weekend at odds on issues…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Game of Thrones finale aired last night, though the show’s less-plausible Washington spinoff appears set to continue indefinitely, and with a rather larger budget.
Blog
Trump Mostly Removes Steel, Aluminum Tariffs against Mexico, Canada: Barriers Still Higher than in 2017
The Trump administration is mostly lifting its steel aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico, effective 48 hours from today’s announcement. But metal tariffs will remain higher…
Blog
Alice Rivlin, 1931-2019
Some economists do more than teach classes and write books. Alice Rivlin, who passed away this week, was proof. She was the first director of…
Blog
Boeing Pushes 100 Percent Tariffs on Airbus
Boeing, fresh off a victory in restoring the Export-Import Bank’s full lending authority, is floating the idea of a 100 percent tariff on Airbus aircraft…
Blog
Trade War State of Play: China, USMCA
If President Trump’s trade war has a single takeaway, it is this: Raising tariffs is an ineffective bargaining strategy. When the U.S. raises its tariffs,…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes called for breaking up the company; CEI’s Iain Murray and Kent Lassman explain why that’s a bad idea. CEI also released…
Blog
Re-Prioritizing Regulatory Reform
The 2019 edition of Wayne Crews’ Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State is out now.
National Review
President Trump Should Rediscover Regulatory Reform
President Trump, who made regulatory reform a priority early in his term, claims to have reduced federal regulatory burdens by $23 billion in fiscal year…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Not one, but two potential Federal Reserve Board nominees withdrew from consideration last week, and economic growth and unemployment remained in excellent health. Meanwhile, with…
Blog
Trump Threatens New China Tariff with May 10th Deadline
On Sunday, President Trump announced via Twitter that if he does not approve of the results of this week’s U.S.-China trade talks, he will enact…
Blog
Ex-Im Bank Revival?
Next week the Senate is expected to vote on new board members for the Export-Import Bank, which gives favorable financing terms to foreign governments and…
Blog
Republican Study Committee Releases 2020 Budget Proposal
Congress is supposed to pass an annual spending budget, though it rarely gets around to it. Instead, the government is usually funded through a mashup…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
While Washington’s “This Town” types geared up for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the rest of the country flocked to movie theaters for a much…
The Washington Examiner
Consumer Doom: Both Parties are Pushing Antitrust Rules as a 2020 Issue
After a two-decade lull following the Microsoft case, big antitrust enforcement cases are back in vogue. Both political parties are making antitrust regulation a 2020…
Blog
Antitrust Regulation Turning into Campaign Issue
Both parties are making antitrust regulation a 2020 campaign issue. Neither President Trump nor most of the Democratic candidates are proposing improvements. Over at the…
Washington Examiner
Consumer doom: Both parties are pushing antitrust rules as a 2020 issue
After a two-decade lull following the Microsoft case, big antitrust enforcement cases are back in vogue. Both political parties are making antitrust regulation a 2020…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire and sustained heavy damage. The rebuilding will likely take years, though people began politicizing it almost instantly.
Blog
Blocking the T-Mobile-Sprint Merger: Competition, Rent-Seeking, and Uncertainty
Nationwide 5G networks are coming. They will expand possibilities for everything from smartphone applications to GPS to streaming video, and will enable new technologies that…
News Release
DOJ Wrong to Intervene in Merger Between Sprint and T-Mobile
Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that antitrust enforcement staff at the Department of Justice have told T-Mobile and Sprint the proposed merger between the…
Blog
New Study: The Case against Antitrust Law
Antitrust regulation is a complex, multifaceted issue. It brings together insights from law, economics, political science, history, philosophy, and other disciplines. Right now both political…
News Release
CEI Makes the Case against the Use of Antitrust Law
The Competitive Enterprise Institute today released a report making the case that government use of antitrust law to break up big companies has a chilling…
Study
The Case against Antitrust Law
Politicians and pundits across the ideological spectrum often call for greater competition in the marketplace. While their favored means vary widely, the view that current…
The Washington Examiner
Mcdonald’s Says It Won’t Lobby on Minimum Wage
The Washington Examiner cited Senior Fellow Ryan Young on McDonald’s and minimum wage. “It’s just trying to get good PR,” Ryan Young, senior…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
In a remarkable human achievement, scientists took the first-ever image of a black hole. The effort took eight telescopes on five continents, five petabytes of…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The news cycle was more sizzle than steak last week. President Trump threatened to shut down the southern border and backed off almost immediately, so…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Pundits spent the week engaging in mortal combat over the Mueller Report, which none of them have read, and spring officially sprung with baseball’s opening…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
As tempers flared over how many “chuggas” to say before “choo-choo,” the 2019 Federal Register topped the 10,000-page mark last week and the number of…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Trump has declared passing the new NAFTA/USMCA as his top legislative priority, but congressional ratification will not be automatic. Mexico and Canada are also…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week was low-drama by recent standards, but still had some important developments. The U.S. trade deficit set a record for the second year in…
Blog
What Do Economists Think about the Minimum Wage?
The playwright George Bernard Shaw once said that if you laid all the world’s economists end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. President…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Michael Cohen hearing shenanigans gobbled up the headlines, but actual substantive news happened regarding talks with China and North Korea—in particular, a planned tariff…
Citation
Delaying Further China Tariffs “Nice” but Fails to Undo Harm “Being Done Right Now”
In a notice put out this morning, the Trump Administration announced a delay in tariffs against China “until further notice.”…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The federal government was on a four-day work week in honor of George Washington’s birthday, but agencies still found time to issue regulations ranging from…
Blog
Say No to Trump’s Proposed Auto Tariffs
President Trump is mulling a tariff on automobiles. Joining a long list of people urging him against it is the Japanese auto industry. That opposition…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress and President Trump passed a spending bill to avoid another shutdown, but President Trump’s national emergency declaration over a non-emergency provides a troubling precedent…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The delayed State of the Union speech happened on Tuesday, but contained no surprises on the policy front. The length of the Federal Register doubled…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Midwest froze, but the Federal Register began to heat up. As I predicted earlier, the first three post-shutdown editions were slow. Then Thursday’s edition…
Blog
The Bicameral Congressional Trade Authority Act
This week Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) introduced the Bicameral Congressional Trade Authority Act, which would reduce the president’s authority to unilaterally enact new tariffs by…
The Washington Free Beacon
Critics: Trend to Raise Minimum Wage Will Cost Potentially Millions of Jobs
The Washington Free Beacon cited Fellow Ryan Young on minimum wage: Ryan Young, a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a free market…
Blog
The Shutdown Is Over: How Does that Affect Regulation?
During the partial shutdown, the Federal Register slowed to a crawl. Published every weekday, an average day’s edition consists of about 270 pages and contains…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The partial shutdown ended on Friday, though only on a three-week deal. This likely will not show up in the Federal Register’s page and rule…
Fox News
Trump Faces Conservative Backlash Over Push for New Tariff Powers
Fox News cited Fellow Ryan Young on President Trump and tariffs: But underscoring the lingering GOP divide on trade, free-market organizations like the…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week, people got worked up over hamburgers and a television commercial about razors. Meanwhile the partial federal shutdown continued, and a bill to introduce…
Blog
Agenda for the 116th Congress: Trade
President Trump’s doubling of tariffs has already cost the economy almost 1.8 percentage points of growth. That means 2018’s 3.4 percent third quarter growth could…
News Release
Federal Minimum Wage Hike Would Cost Jobs, Opportunity, CEI Experts Warn
House Democrats are expected to introduce legislation on Wednesday to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024 - a policy that…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
On Saturday the partial government shutdown became the longest ever. The news cycle was wall-to-wall wall and shutdown coverage, though Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) introduced…
Blog
Reject U.S. Reciprocal Trade Act’s Presidential Power Grab
A forthcoming bill, the U.S. Reciprocal Trade Act, written by “Death by China” coauthor Peter Navarro and other presidential advisers, seeks to expand the president’s…
Blog
Agenda for the 116th Congress: Regulatory Reform
The first chapter in the new Competitive Enterprise Institute agenda for Congress, “Free to Prosper,” is on regulatory reform. Most of the Agenda is about reforming…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Right now is a weird time for regulation. The shutdown has lasted for several business days, and the Federal Register has slowed to a trickle.
Blog
What’s on Tap for Trade in 2019
At noon today, the 116th Congress convened. Over at Fox Business, Iain Murray and I look at what the coming year has in store for…
Fox Business
The New Congress Must Repeal All of Trump’s New Tariffs ASAP: CEI
In two years, President Trump has doubled tariffs in the United States. Allies and adversaries alike have reciprocated, and the economic effects are already visible,…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The shutdown continued all through Christmas week. But because the Federal Register works on a few days lag for many of its publications, it still…
Blog
An Executive Order to Shine Light on Dark Matter
Over at The Hill, Wayne Crews and I make the case for an executive order that would limit executive power. It’s more plausible than it…
The Hill
How to Rein in Regulatory Dark Matter
Divisive hot-button issues are distracting public attention from policy reforms that could make everyone better off by expanding the economy. One of these is regulatory…
Blog
Best Books of 2018: Clashing over Commerce
Douglas Irwin’s magnum opus, published at the end of 2017, is already a classic. Given the prominent role trade is playing in politics right now, it…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
In an eventful week that included criminal justice reform, shutdown drama, and cabinet drama, this year’s new regulations exceeded 2017’s total with more than a…
Blog
Best Books of 2018: Suicide of the West & Enlightenment Now
Goldberg’s “Suicide of the West” is a literate, snappily written, and often humorous defense of Enlightenment values and a broadside against populism. Steven Pinker’s “Enlightenment…
Blog
Best Books of 2018: Factfulness
Think Julian Simon, Matt Ridley, and Steven Pinker’s data-driven optimism, mixed with Michael Shermer and Bryan Caplan’s awareness of human cognitive biases, as told by…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
A partial federal shutdown looks more likely than it did a week ago, the federal deficit will likely top $1 trillion next year, and Theresa…
Citation
AUDIO: Ryan Young Joins the Phil Valentine Show to Discuss New NAFTA
Fellow Ryan Young joined the Phil Valentine Show to discuss the new NAFTA.
Blog
Top Ten Antitrust Targets
Columbia University professor Tim Wu is author of the new book The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age, which calls for a…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Former President George H.W. Bush was laid to rest, and no Federal Register was published on Wednesday. President Trump created a new superhero, Tariff Man,…
Blog
U.S.-China Trade Deal at G20 Small Move in Right Direction
Nobody knew what to expect going into the G20 summit in Argentina, especially from a planned meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
In the news, The new NAFTA was signed (but still needs legislative approval in all three countries), General Motors announced major layoffs and plant closures,…