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Infrastructure Bill’s Non-Serious Nature Is a Serious Problem
America’s current surface transportation authorization, the FAST Act, expires at the end of September. Rather than reauthorizing it, however, House Democrats have introduced the INVEST…
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Emergencies and the Project Manager’s Dilemma
Government agencies’ initial responses to the COVID-19 crisis were notable for one particular characteristic: incompetence. From basic errors in data collection, through failed lab safety…
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Delivery Price Caps Threaten New Restaurant Lifeline
Tomorrow, the Washington, D.C. City Council votes on a bill that seeks to impose a price cap on the commission a third-party delivery platform can…
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The Economy after COVID-19 Will Be Different from Before, Part One
As governors begin to lift restrictions on economic activity, polling data show that Americans are generally still afraid of the virus and have changed their…
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Regulation, Not Offshoring, Is Hindering Industry from Ramping up Production
In his latest Bloomberg column, Noah Smith argues that offshoring production led to the current shortage of medical masks and equipment in the face of…
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Liberate to Stimulate 2020: Let’s Start with Trade
The past two weeks have seen a volatile market owing to concerns over coronavirus, which suggests an economic downturn could be on the cards. The…
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Joint Employer Rule Gives Much-Needed Certainty to Franchises
The National Labor Relations Board finalized a rule last week that will bring much needed relief and certainty to the franchise industry and other industries…
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Best Books of 2019: The Anarchy by William Dalrymple
How did a joint stock company founded in Elizabethan England come to replace the glorious Mughal Empire of India, ruling that great land for a…
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Competitive Enterprise Institute Opposes USMCA Trade Agreement
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) today announced its opposition to the USMCA trade agreement between the United States, Mexico, and Canada because the updated agreement…
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Growth Slows as Tariffs Bite
Economic growth slowed in the second quarter of 2019, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It remained above 2% thanks to a combination of…
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Political Realignment Is Big Problem for Free-Market Supporters
Angela Nagle, an economic nationalist and author of “Kill All Normies,” recently argued on a podcast that, “Conservatives are starting to have these interesting debates…
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Tariffs Slow Investment, Threaten Retail Industry
Large U.S. companies slowed their investment in the first quarter of 2019, largely because of ongoing trade tensions between the U.S. and China. This is…
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White House Uses Discredited Complaints Tactic against Social Media Companies
My colleague Wayne Crews has already slammed the White House for a first step towards government regulation of online speech in its “tech bias” complaints…
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Breaking up and Regulating Facebook: Unfair, Un-American, Unacceptable
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, former publisher of The New Republic, argues in a long essay for The New York Times that the company should be…
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Sharing Economy Is Opposite of Servant Economy
In a bleak take on the sharing economy, Atlantic writer Alexis C. Madrigal says it has created a “servant economy,” where sharing economy platforms provide…
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Move Slowly and Establish Rules: Facebook’s Call for Regulation
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s motto used to be “Move fast and break things.” Now that his company is under increased political scrutiny—and facing calls for…
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America’s Tech Regulators Should Not Follow Europe’s Lead
This week The Economist endorsed European “tech doctrine”—a combination of antitrust, tax, privacy, and regulatory policies that is rapidly being imposed on a mostly American…
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Brexit Brinkmanship
There is plenty of blame to go around for Britain’s current Brexit chaos. In a recent post, I pointed to how the Prime Minister’s handling…
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Trade, Job Losses, and Comparable Wages
One of the frequent objections posted by those who are concerned about free trade is that it leads to job losses. This is true. However,…
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Administration Looks to Make Household-Level Imports More Expensive
One of the consistent problems with the Trump administration’s trade policy is an obsession with reciprocity—if goods aren’t treated exactly the same way as imports…
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Economics of Green New Deal: More Red Than Green
My colleagues have written elsewhere about the energy and environmental components of the “Green New Deal” proposals that have been enthusiastically agreed to by most…
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Jobs Numbers Continue Generally Positive Trend
The latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest that the economy is continuing on a steady course, at least as far as…
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Brexit: The EU’s Gordian Knot Strangles May’s Government
When Rory Broomfield and I were examining the prospects for Britain leaving the European Union in 2014-16, we recognized that there was no easy way…
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Great Jobs Numbers Don’t Assuage Trade War Worries
Today’s jobs numbers were a surprise to everyone—312,000 jobs added in December was almost twice the consensus view of economists of 176,000. Strong wage growth…
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Year in Review 2018: Trade Policy
2018 was the year in which President Trump began to implement his campaign promises of using tariffs to change America’s trade policy. The ostensible reason…
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Year in Review 2018: Antitrust
If 2018 was a bad year for antitrust skeptics, 2019 promises to be worse. We must hope that the Federal Trade Commission and Department of…
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Don’t Blame Google for a Feature Consumers Want
It’s very rare I disagree with the great freedom-loving journalist John Stossel, but his column at Townhall this week made me raise an eyebrow. In…
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Britain’s Treaty of Versailles
“Vote leave, take control” was the slogan of the “leave” campaign during the run-up to the vote on whether the United Kingdom should exit the…
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What Do the Midterms Mean for Big Tech?
For the big technology firms, the midterm elections were never going to change much. Whatever the result, they were going to face more scrutiny over the…
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August Brought 201,000 New Jobs, but Future Gains Threatened by Trade Restrictions
The U.S. economy added 201,000 jobs in August, the U.S. Labor Department announced today. Good news, but impending trade restrictions could put a damper…
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U.S. Should Re-engage with World Trade Organization for Everyone’s Sake
Last week, President Trump threatened to pull out of the World Trade Organization, which he called “the single worst trade deal ever made.” …
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Will New NAFTA Be More Protectionist or Less?
This week has seen some swift movement in the talks surrounding the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). On Monday, the President held…
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Brexit Britain Provides Opportunity for New Style of U.S. Trade Agreement
Despite its reliance on raising tariff barriers as a weapon in trade negotiation, the U.S. will soon have the opportunity to negotiate a new free…
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World Trade: The Special Case of China
While free trade with all nations is the avowed goal of both free traders (as we outline in our paper, Traders of the Lost Ark)…
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Rediscovering a Moral and Economic Case for Free Trade
In our new paper, “Traders of the Lost Ark,” my Competitive Enterprise Institute colleagues and I attempt to articulate a strong moral and economic…
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New Jobs Numbers Suggest There’s More Work to Do on Free-Market Reform
At an unemployment rate of 3.9%, it should be expected that job growth will slow. Employers around the country are reporting that they are unable…
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The Platform Economy Can Change the World
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute launches its new video about the platform economy. Platforms are an ancient way of doing business—think of matchmakers, city fairs,…
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Continue Supply-Side Policies to Maintain Economic Growth
As my colleague Ryan Young says, four percent economic growth is wonderful news. It provides yet more evidence that free-market, supply-side policies work, and…
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Driving Innovation: Timbro Index Charts Scope of Global Sharing Economy
The Swedish think tank Timbro has published the first global index of the sharing economy. The Timbro Sharing Economy Index (TSEI) is the…
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Britain’s Brexit Challenge Gets Harder—and It’s Britain’s Fault
Leaving a regional trade bloc is much more difficult than entering it, as the United Kingdom is finding out. The European Union has integrated itself…
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It’s Magna Carta Day!
In a peaceful English meadow made riotous by armed camps, King John sealed Magna Carta, the Great Charter of English liberty, 803 years ago…
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It’s Not “Us vs. Them” at the G7 Meeting
Tit-for-tat retaliation for trade tariffs is a losing game for both sides. Exports are the way we pay for imports of the things we want.
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A New Bibliography for the Platform Economy
The future has arrived, and it is a radically different economy. Havas Media’s Tom Goodwin pointed out in 2015, “Uber, the world’s largest taxi…
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How to Encourage Tech Competition: Deregulate Finance
It’s May Day, and in the pages of the New York Times appears a paean to the halcyon days of the 1930s, urging a…
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More Evidence of Growth in February Job Figures
Today’s jobs numbers shattered expectations—313,000 new jobs in February against an expectation of 200,000. The numbers provide yet more support to the…
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Trump’s Recent Trade Decisions Could Spell Doom for the Economy
With President Trump’s announcement on steel and aluminum tariffs and his continued wrong-headed approach to trade policy, there are reasons to be concerned that a…
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Job and GDP Growth Numbers Signal Improving Economy
Today’s jobs numbers, which were modestly above expectations, are yet another sign that the economy is starting to pick up steam as a result of…
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Theory and Practice Argue We Should Abolish Antitrust Laws
Laws about competition should be restricted to laws preventing government from playing favorites. Government-erected barriers against competition or innovation need to be torn down. As…
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New Evidence on the Effects of Teacher Unions
At a time when minimum wage laws are causing opportunities for unskilled young people to disappear, it is all the more vital that education provides…
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The Top Five Reforms in Financial Regulation Needed in 2018
With the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at last pulling back from its regulatory assault on the financial services industry, conditions are right for major…