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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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)…
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…
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…
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…
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.,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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),…
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.
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…
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…
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…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The economic recovery continues, but Congress is still intent on passing unneeded stimulus and infrastructure spending. Inflation is also up, and five antitrust bills…
Blog
CPI Inflation Indicator Hits 5 Percent: Not Stagflation, But a Useful Warning
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for May came out this morning. At 5 percent, it was higher than expected. CPI has its…
Inside Sources
How To Stimulate the COVID Recovery Without Trillions in New Spending
The COVID recovery is going well, but it could be going better. America’s unemployment rate is already down from double digits to under 6…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Unemployment is back under 6 percent, and it’s looking more and more like the economy is reverting back to trend. We’re not there yet,…
News Release
Jobs Numbers Show Rolling Back Covid-19 Restrictions Would Restore Resilience in U.S. Economy
The Biden Administration’s Labor Department reported today that the United States added 559,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.8%.
Blog
Steel Companies Lobby for Steel Tariffs, Biden to Double Lumber Tariffs
One of the first things President Biden should have done upon taking office was to eliminate the Trump tariffs. This would have provided potent…
News Release
DC Antitrust Suit Against Amazon Could Actually Harm Consumers by Making Online Goods More Expensive
The District of Columbia’s Attorney General filed a lawsuit today against Amazon, alleging the tech company is engaged in anti-competitive behavior by controlling…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI’s Wayne Crews looked at the Biden administration’s dismantling transparency reforms for guidance documents and warned that political spending on scientific research would…
Blog
Microsoft to Retire Internet Explorer: Lessons for Today’s Antitrust Cases
Microsoft just announced it will retire its Internet Explorer browser next year. This is the same program that was at the heart of…
Blog
What Inflation Is, and What It Isn’t
It looks like we’re in for a bit of inflation. After decades of stable 2 percent inflation, the latest indicators say it’s moving…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The best news of the week was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advising that vaccinated people can safely go mask-free pretty much…
Blog
One of Google’s Antitrust Cases Dismissed, for Now
A District judge on Thursday dismissed a private antitrust case against Google brought by a group of advertisers. It does not affect separate…
The Center Square
Conservatives Raise Alarm Over Potential for Hidden ‘Biden Tax’ for Middle Class, Poorer Americans
The Center Square cites Senior Fellow Ryan Young on inflation: “Yes, inflation is a tax, and yes, an uptick in inflation…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Facebook Oversight Board conditionally upheld former President Trump’s Facebook ban. Many Republican responses showed that they either do not understand the First Amendment…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The economy bounced back in a big way, according to numbers released on Thursday. Things are not quite back where they were, but the…
News Release
EU Antitrust Action Against Apple – Bad for Trade, Bad for Consumers
The EU Commission declared today that “Apple has a monopoly” in the distribution of music streaming apps to owners of Apple devices, the upshot…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big news of the week was the guilty verdicts in the Derek Chauvin murder trial. Senate Republicans continued their longtime strategy of bargaining…
Fox News
Hawley To Introduce Bill To ‘Bust Up’ Big Tech, Targeting Companies Like Google And Amazon
Fox News cites Director for the Center for Technology and Innovation Jessica Melugin and Senior Fellow Ryan Young on Hawley’s efforts to regulate the…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress played a round of good idea-bad idea last week. Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) introduced a bill for a regulatory budget, similar to…
News Release
Hawley Antitrust Plan Would Limit Innovation and Harm Consumers
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) today touted a new proposal he calls a “trust busting plan” that calls for a new standard for antitrust intervention…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen floated the idea of a global minimum corporate tax and Amazon workers in Alabama voted against unionizing. The…
Blog
Who Pays Corporate Taxes?
Congress is considering increasing the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent to help pay for the big infrastructure bill it is…
National Review
Corporations Don’t Pay Corporate Taxes. People Do
A mammoth infrastructure bill is on the way from Congress, and policy-makers are touting a corporate-tax-rate hike to help pay for it. Treasury…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Washington’s attention flitted back and forth between beginning work on a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and a brewing sex scandal allegedly involving Rep. Matt Gaetz…
Blog
U.S. Trade Representative Tai Should Rethink Keeping China Tariffs in Place
Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal interviewed Katherine Tai, the new United States Trade Representative. She has a lot of work ahead of…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
A massive container ship turned sideways and blocked the Suez canal, halting roughly $10 billion worth of international trade per day, or about…
Blog
Putting a Price on Conspiracy Theories, Revisited
Conspiracy theories are back in the news, so it’s a good time to revisit my recent Fortune article about putting prices on conspiracy…
News Release
CEI Commends Sen. Lankford for Introducing Pandemic Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Act
On Thursday, Senator James Lankford (R-OK) introduced the Pandemic Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Act. The bill would establish an independent commission…
Blog
Restoring Separation of Powers and Improving Resilience with the USA Act
Separation of powers is a core principle of American government. But things haven’t gone quite as planned. Congress, the first branch, has increasingly taken…
Blog
Book Review: Open: The Story of Human Progress by Johan Norberg
On March 25, 2021 at noon ET, CEI is hosting a double book forum featuring Johan Norberg, the 2019 winner of CEI’s Julian L.
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI published its new Agenda for Congress. We also held a launch event featuring Sen. Rand Paul. Meanwhile, the 2021 Federal Register…
Blog
Agenda for Congress: Regulatory Reform
CEI’s new agenda for Congress is out now. If you’re interested only in certain issues, individual chapters are downloadable here. We also…
The Washington Times
With an Eye on Prosperity
The Washington Times cites CEI’s publication, Free to Prosper, and related online event: The Competitive Enterprise Institute will release “Free to…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress passed a $1.9 trillion spending bill, some of which may actually be COVID-related. Agencies issued new rules ranging from eastern hellbenders to reentry…
Blog
Why Facebook’s Antitrust Cases Should Be Dropped
Facebook filed today to dismiss antitrust lawsuits against it today by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and several state attorneys general. One of…
News Release
CEI Experts: Courts Should Dismiss Antitrust Lawsuits against Facebook
Facebook today asked courts to dismiss antitrust lawsuits brought by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, an outcome supported by the Competitive…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
One sign that the worst of COVID is likely now past is that instead of disease and economic hardship, people got riled up over…
Blog
Some Good Tariff News
I’ve written before about the 17-year-long dispute between the United States and the European Union over Boeing and Airbus subsidies. Each jurisdiction has…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
COVID-19 cases are finally in decline as vaccinations continue, to the point where there is reason for cautious optimism. Congress was busy with a…
News Release
Federal Minimum Wage Hike will Force Cuts Elsewhere
With the Democrat-controlled Congress aiming to imminently pass a plan to increase the federally-mandated minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour nationwide as…
Blog
The Regional Differences Argument against a $15 Minimum Wage
The strongest political argument against increasing the federal minimum wage is the regional differences argument. Basically, while a $15 minimum wage might not be…
The Hill
The Problem With A One-Size-Fits-All Federal Minimum Wage Hike
Minimum wage mandates aren’t free. They force employers to make difficult decisions and tradeoffs. When government forces wages up, non-wage pay goes down: Workers…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It was a four-day week due to Washington’s Birthday (see my colleague John Berlau’s recent book, George Washington, Entrepreneur). The Perseverance rover landed…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Former President Trump’s impeachment trial was the big new story, though there is little suspense about the outcome. Meanwhile, agencies issued new rules ranging…
Blog
Upcoming CEI Event: Bart Wilson on The Property Species
At noon ET on Thursday, February 11, CEI is hosting an event with the experimental economist Bart Wilson, author of The…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Senate passed the big budget reconciliation bill last week on a 50-50 tie broken by Vice President Harris. This week will see the…
Blog
Proposed European Tech Regulations Will Backfire, Badly
The European Union recently proposed two major tech regulation bills aimed at America’s tech industry, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
As the new administration settles in, it appears they will continue many Trump administration policies, such as “Buy American” provisions and trade protectionism.
Blog
New President, Same Bad Policies
The Trump administration’s trade war gave economics teachers countless real-world examples of bad policy they can use in the classroom. A new open…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Biden was inaugurated on Wednesday. With the usual end-of-administration midnight rush now over, things will likely slow down. It takes time for new…
The Daily Signal
Will Biden’s Policies Lead to Job Losses? Here Are Possible Economic Impacts of 4 of Them
The Daily Signal cites Senior Fellow Ryan Young on the impact of a minimum wage increase: However, the economic impact isn’t…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Happy MLK Day, everyone. The Trump administration’s final full week was an eventful one. The president was impeached for a second time. The usual…
News Release
Federal Minimum Wage Hike to $15 an Hour Will Hurt Small Businesses, Lead to Lost Jobs
President-elect Joe Biden today announced a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 recovery plan that includes not only $1,400 stimulus checks to many Americans but a federal…
Blog
Economics Can Help Explain Conspiracy Theorists
There is a lot of conspiracy theory garbage floating around. On January 6, it took a violent turn. Five people died in a coup…
Fortune
It’s Time to Raise the Cost of Spreading Conspiracy Theories
Conspiracy theories were a major driver behind the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building. They have also been a growing part of…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
After last week’s insurrection at the Capitol, the outgoing president, several elected officials, and their supporters have some soul-searching to do. Meanwhile, agencies continued…
News Release
December Job Losses in Leisure & Hospitality Eclipse Gains in Other Sectors – What Can Policymakers Do?
The Labor Department reported today the economy lost 140,000 jobs in December 2020. Gains in various sectors were eclipsed by 500,000 jobs lost…
Blog
Toward Simplifying Antitrust Regulation
Antitrust regulation is a complex mess. Multiple agencies have overlapping jurisdiction with no set rules for determining who takes which cases. One of the…
The Hill
Are Two Federal Agencies Smarter Than One to File Antitrust Lawsuits?
Antitrust lawsuits seem to come in waves. The Justice Department sued Google last fall. Then Facebook was hit with two different lawsuits, one from…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Happy new year, everyone. We made it. 2020 was rough, but as I argued last week, it was not the worst year ever.
Blog
Regulation in 2020: Some Quick Numbers
The 251st and final issue of the 2020 Federal Register was released this morning. Here are some of the initial findings: Federal agencies issued…
Blog
2020 Was Difficult. It Was Not the Worst Year Ever
It’s been a hard year, and I am hardly alone in being glad it’s almost over. But was 2020 the worst year ever?…