Foundation for Economic Education
Government Targets the App Economy
The sharing economy promises such radical change that economist Klaus Schwab is calling it The Fourth Industrial Revolution. But unlike the previous revolutions, its…
Washington Examiner
A Trump-Clinton race means the end of free-trading America
The Washington Examiner discusses the problems with the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement with Iain Murray. As Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute…
Blog
Australian Bank Devalues Rewards Scheme in Anticipation of Interchange Fee Cap
I fear I am beginning to sound like a broken record on the subject of payments card interchange fees, with the needle stuck on “We…
CapX
Today’s Free Trade: Not Free and Not Trade
This Thursday, the US Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing on “Lessons from the past” in implementing free trade deals. There’s a lot to…
National Review
Obamaloans Are Back
As I warned back in 2014, the President’s budget contains a clear sign that he would like to nationalize the small dollar lending market.
Blog
White House Threatens Veto to Choke Point Reform Bill
As has been demonstrated time and again, this administration is opposed to any change in the law that will reduce its powers. We see this…
Blog
Bill Aims to Stop Operation Choke Point Happening Again
Operation Choke Point is a major abuse of executive authority. As we have detailed over the last couple of years, Choke Point is an…
Blog
Interchange Fee Warnings Coming True in EU
We have often warned about the negative effects of interchange fee regulation and specifically a cap on interchange fees. Last year we warned the European Parliament that…
National Review
Who Ruined Air Travel? The Airlines, their Unions, and their Politicians
Over on the homepage, Josh Gelernter makes a strong case that the left ruined air travel. He is right when…
National Review
West Lake Landfill Boondoggle Another Nail in the Coffin of Superfund
If you want an example of how the Federal Government isn’t really interested in environmental cleanup you couldn’t go far wrong with looking at the…
Blog
Lyft Drivers Remain Independent Contractors
A California class-action lawsuit against ridesharing company Lyft has been settled without trial. In the settlement, Lyft agreed to pay its drivers, their lawyers, and…
National Review
Are There Economic Policy Answers to Trump Voters’ Woes?
Tim Carney, in the Washington Examiner, well sums up the main grievances of both Trump and Sanders voters: the lack of prospects facing blue collar…
Products
Free Market Groups Putting Property Principles into Action
When I told a friend some years ago that I was going to be working in a think tank, he replied, “Huh. I always wondered…
Blog
Market Dominance Doesn’t Last; Regulation Shouldn’t Either
One of the justifications for heavy regulation of large companies is that they use market power to crush competition and maintain market dominance. Yet the…
The Freeman
Why Government Should Not Regulate the App Economy
In Damon Runyon’s Broadway stories (and in the musical Guys and Dolls), a gambler named Nathan Detroit hosts New York’s oldest established floating crap game,…
National Review
The Administration Is Ruling by Decree
Yesterday, the Department of Labor unexpectedly issued a new rule (which it called an interpretation) that will upend thousands of businesses’ established practices. It did…
Blog
Three Economists Had the Answer to the President’s Questions
Last night at the State of the Union, the President asked three questions regarding domestic policy (I’ll leave the foreign policy question to others). They…
Blog
The EU Faces Many Challenges in 2016
The EU is in a quiet crisis. For the first time it faces the prospect of a major economy leaving the EU voluntarily. Its internal…
Blog
Promoting Economic Freedom in 2016
It was Marxists who wanted permanent revolution, but it is capitalists who have delivered it. The last 50 years have seen a sustained revolution in…
National Review
Omnibus Bill: Search in Vain for the Regulatory Relief
There are certainly some good things in the Omnibus Spending/Tax Extenders bills that dropped early this morning (though I…
National Review
Highway Robbery: Bill Gives IRS Power over Passports
Iain Murray discusses the provision to the highway bill that allows the IRS to revoke passports. This Thanksgiving, we were missing a family…
Blog
A Fundamental Misunderstanding of Free Enterprise
Today, in The Guardian, columnist Zoe Williams repeats an idea often advanced by progressives, that entrepreneurial activity is dependent on the action of others, especially “government,”…
Watchdog.org
Even after stunning October jobs report, regulations are holding the economy back
Watchdog.org reviews October national jobs report and discuses the issue with Iain Murray who claims regulations may be slowing down economic growth. Iain…
Foundation for Economic Education
How the State Keeps You Working Long Hours
Entrepreneur Tim Ferriss found he had a mega-hit on his hands with his 2007 book, The 4-Hour Workweek, a paean to a new attitude toward…
Blog
Bureau of Labor Statistics Releases October Jobs Report
National Review
Why Liberals Secretly Love Corporations
Iain Murray, in his article for the National Review, investigates why the Left pushes regulatory policies that support the old corporate structure even though this is contrary to…
Blog
Halloween Not So Scary for Parents
When it comes to Halloween these days, it seems that parents scare more easily than their children. For the past 15 years, I have checked…
National Review
Regulatory Freeze Needs to Be Part of the Deal
Iain Murray discusses regulatory reform in the National Review: Representative Bill Flores’s Terms of Credit Act, which sought to pair the debt limit…
The Freeman
Depression-Era Laws Threaten the Sharing Economy
Imagine you’re driving for Uber or Lyft. As an independent contractor, you enjoy setting your own work hours, picking up people you like chatting with…
Blog
Back to the Future in Payments Technology
One of the things Back to the Future Part II almost got right about 2015 was how Biff paid for his cab ride—with a thumbprint. A lot…
Blog
Fed Reacts to Job Reports, Why Doesn’t Department of Labor?
We had another jobs report below expectations this morning, coupled with a rare revision downwards of last month’s jobs report. This ends a summer of jobs…
The Daily Caller
Stalled Unemployment Spells Bad News for the Economy
The Daily Caller cites CEI's report by Iain Murray on the recent announcment of job editions. Palley also argued the Federal Reserve should not…
Blog
World Bank Increases Number of Poor
The World Bank is considering changing its definition of what constitutes extreme poverty, raising the level below which someone is treated as extremely poor from $1.25…
Blog
Transparency in Card Fees: Where Does the Argument Stop?
There are three ways banks that issue credit and debit cards can gain revenue from them: interest rates (in the case of credit cards) charged…
National Review
A Better Road Map than the U.N.’s to Empower the Poor
Study
Real Goals to Empower the Developing World
The United Nations is soon due to replace its ambitious Millennium Development Goals with a new set of far more extensive and even more ambitious…
Blog
Australian Reserve Bank Gets the Economics Wrong on Interchange Fees
A new report commissioned by the International Alliance for Electronic Payments, of which CEI is a member, finds that the Reserve Bank of Australia…
Blog
NLRB’s Joint-Employer Ruling: Payback for Unions at Workers’ and Business’ Expense
In a radical new ruling, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) late last week threw all American franchise and contract businesses into a state of…
The Freeman
World’s Poor: “We Want Capitalism”
Daily Caller
NLRB Upends Franchising And Contracting In Landmark Case
Iain Murray talks to the Daily Caller about the devastating effects of the NLRB Joint Employer ruling: The impact could be great. Many…
Blog
The NLRB Declines Jurisdiction in College Athlete Unionization Case
The National Labor Relations Board has declined the opportunity to rule on whether or not college athletes are employees and can therefore be…
The Freeman
Liquid Capital Was the First Killer App
The sharing economy is older than smartphone apps. The modern financial system may be the first example to have evolved. Rather than sharing capital assets…
Blog
The Administration Is about to Upend American Business Practices
It is probably the biggest change in American employment law since the National Labor Relations Act and its reform in the 1930s and ‘40s, but…
Blog
CEI and Allies Submit Evidence to Australian Senate Inquiry on Credit Cards
Today, CEI and other members of the International Alliance for Electronic Payments joined the Australian Taxpayers Alliance in submitting evidence to an Australian Senate inquiry into credit…
Comment
IAEP Submission to Australian Senate on Credit Card Interest Payments
Full Document Available in PDF Credit card interest rates and other features are only partly driven by factors such as the Reserve…
Blog
Financial Regulation and Payments Update: July 31, 2015
Last week saw the fifth anniversary of Dodd-Frank and there was a great deal of commentary from opponents of the act, not least from us…
Blog
Dodd-Frank’s Dire Legacy: The Durbin Amendment
Study
How Dodd-Frank Harms Main Street
The financial crisis of 2007-2008 was a drastic shock to the American economy. Now five years after being signed into law, Dodd-Frank was just as powerful…
National Review
There Is No ‘Deal’ to Reauthorize Ex-Im
I am bemused by Senator Cruz’s volte-face on trade-promotion authority. There is no deal to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank (which CEI, like…
National Review
Raisins Takings Case Goes Back to Magna Carta
One of the oddest cases the Supreme Court decided today also should have been one of the simplest. In Horne v USDA the very simple…