Blog
IRS Licensing of Tax Preparers Is Ripe for Abuse
Roughly a quarter of all jobs in America now require some sort of occupational license. Sixty years ago, it was about one job in…
Blog
September Inflation Remains High and Fixable
Inflation remains high, with September’s numbers coming in at a 5.4 percent annualized rate, the highest number in a decade. The Federal Reserve’s target…
Blog
The 2021 Economics Nobels: The Importance of Empiricism, and its Limits
The economics Nobel is given to individuals, but it often really intends to recognize schools of thought or methodological approaches. That is the case with…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Katherine Tai, the new U.S. Trade Representative, gave a major speech affirming President Biden’s commitment to former President Trump’s trade protectionism. Facebook’s website…
News Release
Jobs Added to U.S. Economy in September Show Signs of Hope and Hesitancy: CEI Analysis
The U.S. economy added 194,000 jobs added in September, and unemployment dipped. CEI experts Ryan Young and Sean Higgins say this is encouraging because it…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress averted a government shutdown and continued to negotiate over nearly $5 trillion in combined spending. Merck announced an antiviral pill for COVID-19 that…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI held its Julian Simon Award dinner, honoring the development economist William Easterly. We also paid remembrance to 2020’s winner, the late, great…
Blog
Not Always an Antitrust Issue: Airline Edition
The Justice Department is gearing up to file an antitrust case against JetBlue and American Airlines over an alliance they recently formed. The Wall…
News Release
Senate Judiciary Antitrust Hearing on Big Data Based on Flawed Premises
WASHINGTON – The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust will hold a hearing today on the implications of data on competition. Subcommittee Chair Senator Amy…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Inflation remains high at over 5 percent, California’s governor will finish out his term after a recall attempt failed, and culture warriors got outraged at…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The 2021 Federal Register surpassed 50,000 pages in a short Labor Day week. Fresh off a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill, Congress began work on a $3.5…
News Release
Court Rules Apple App Store Rules Do Not Violate Antitrust Laws
A federal district court today ruled that Apple’s rules regarding payments on its App Store do not violate antitrust laws. The case, brought by video…
News Release
Latest Producer Price Index Indicates Inflation Too High
The government’s latest numbers on average changes in prices, as measured by the Producer Price Index (PPI), are up at an annualized rate of 8.3…
Blog
Jobless Claims Are Down, but Tensions Remain in COVID Recovery
Jobless claims are at their lowest levels since the start of the pandemic; 310,000 people filed first-time claims last week, down roughly 95 percent…
News Release
WEIRDest People in the World Author to Keynote Competitive Enterprise Institute Event September 21
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The United States officially ended its military occupation of Afghanistan. Hurricane Ida killed at least 40 people in the Northeastern U.S., while in the New…
News Release
Disappointing August Job Gains Tied to Covid Restrictions, Politics
Competitive Enterprise Institute experts commented on today’s disappointing news about August job gains, urging policy makers to reject restrictions and politics and look for ways…
Blog
Fighting Bias and Misinformation, from Pierre Bayle’s 17th Century to the Social Media Age
Many people insist that media bias and misinformation are getting worse in the social media age, and we need to do something about it. Depending…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress seems to have reached a deal to combine the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. A $6 trillion budget bill remains…
News Release
Consumer Spending, Personal Income Growth Hinge on Combating Covid Delta Variant
The federal government today released July data on consumer spending (slower growth compared to June) and personal income growth (higher than expected). CEI Senior…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big story of the week was the United States’ military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Back home, a new school year began and the economic…
Blog
The Progressive Playbook? Thoughts on a Slippery Slope
Is there a master plan behind the blunders of governments? Or are politicians just making it up as they go along? The cabal model…
Blog
FTC Re-Files Facebook Antitrust Complaint
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) submitted a revised antitrust complaint against Facebook today. In June, a judge threw out the initial complaint for…
News Release
FTC’s Latest Antitrust Case Against Facebook a Conflict-of-Interest in Search of a Crime
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted to re-file an antitrust case against Facebook, accusing the social media company of being a monopoly and seeking to…
News Release
Jobless Claims Drop to Pre-Pandemic Level but Congress Spending Binge Threatens Recovery
The federal government today reported a drop in seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims to the lowest level for this average since March 2020. CEI…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Senate passed the big infrastructure bill in a dramatic marathon vote. It now goes to the House. Up next is a $3.5 trillion spending…
Blog
New Inflation Numbers: Still High, Still Fixable
July’s inflation numbers are out. The annualized Consumer Price Index came in at 5.4 percent, compared to a 2 percent target. The month-to-month increase…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Nearly 1 million jobs were created in July, while Congress put the finishing touches on an infrastructure bill that will add about $250 billion…
News Release
July Jobs Analysis: More Spending, Restrictions from Congress Won’t Help
The U.S. economy added 943,000 jobs in the month of July, with a decline in unemployment to 5.4 percent according to government numbers released…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Second quarter GDP grew at a 6.5 percent annualized pace, although COVID’s delta variant, inflation, and massive deficit spending could dampen growth going forward.
News Release
Numbers Show Economy is Recovering, but Washington Spending Won’t Help
New numbers from the Commerce Department show the economy showed strong growth in the second quarter of the hear, with gross domestic product (GDP) at…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Olympic games began in Tokyo, after being delayed a year due to COVID-19. Congress is working its way through a $3.5 trillion spending bill…
The Washington Examiner
Democrats’ Carbon Tariffs Would Hurt Consumers and Slow Recovery
There is a real danger that the world’s first carbon tariffs could be added to the $3.5 trillion spending bill making its way through Congress.
Blog
Carbon Tariffs Would Hurt Consumers, Slow Recovery
Over in the Washington Examiner, I take a look at the carbon tariff proposal that will likely be in the $3.5 trillion spending bill…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI announced that renowned development economist William Easterly will receive its 2021 Julian Simon Award at a two-day event in Washington, D.C., on…
Blog
Green Protectionism on the Rise?
The $3.5 trillion budget proposal that the Democratic leadership in Congress is putting together will reportedly include the world’s first carbon tariffs, which are…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Blog
Relevant Markets, A Dozen Keystrokes, and the Google Play Store Antitrust Lawsuit
Yesterday, after markets closed, 36 state attorneys general announced another antitrust lawsuit against Google. This complaint centers around Google’s Play Store, in which it…
Blog
A Sustained Recovery Needs a Deregulatory Stimulus
Over in The Hill, Wayne Crews and I argue that more deficit spending won’t help the COVID recovery. Regulatory reform is more powerful stimulus…
The Hill
Sustained Economic Growth Needs Congressional Regulatory Reform
Former President Trump was the first president in 30 years to take a serious interest in regulatory reform. You might have to go back to former…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The CEI community mourned the loss of Steve Horwitz, a principled classical liberal, a fine economist, and an even finer person. We’ll miss you, Steve.
News Release
CEI Supports Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Byron Donald’s New Regulatory Reform Bill to Prune Unneeded Rules
WASHINGTON – Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) recently introduced S. 2239, the Unnecessary Agency Regulations Act of 2021, a law that would require the Office…
News Release
Government Can Further Jobs Gain By Continuing to Ease Restriction and Not Spending
The economy added 850,000 jobs in June, according to newly released numbers by the Labor Department. That exceeds the anticipated number of 700,00. And the…
Blog
The 2021 Edition of Ten Thousand Commandments Is Out Now
How much does regulation cost? It’s hard to tell, due to a lack of transparency. The government is legally required to tell the public how…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Negotiators reached a deal on a bipartisan infrastructure bill, at least for now. There were also marathon committee markup sessions for five antitrust bills. Meanwhile,…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Members of Congress introduced five antitrust bills last week. Antitrust activist Lina Khan was confirmed to a seat on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and…
Blog
A Better Approach to Tariff Diplomacy
In diplomacy, carrots tend to be more effective than sticks. Yet, two consecutive administrations have used tariff threats to try to achieve their objectives. Former…
National Review
Are Tariffs the Right Response to Foreign Digital Taxes?
Last week’s G-7 meetings provided an opportunity to resolve the growing international tensions over tariffs. Simply removing the tariffs enacted by and against the…
News Release
US/EU Reach Limited Agreement on Aerospace Tariffs but Fall Short
The European Union and the United States eagerly announced today that they resolved their 17-year dispute over aerospace subsidies, but subsidies to Boeing and Airbus will remain…
Blog
Boeing-Airbus Dispute Remains Unsolved: Tariffs Gone, Subsidies Stay
The European Union and the United States eagerly announced today that they had resolved their 17-year dispute over aerospace subsidies. They exaggerate their claims.