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Predicting a brighter regulatory future for prediction markets
CEI scholars have many skills, but predicting the future is not one of them. However, when it comes to prediction markets, based on recent events,…
Blog
ESG refugees: Ally with taxpayers
Yesterday the Competitive Enterprise Institute published my new study with John Mozena, “Corporate Social Irresponsibility: After ESG, activist investors should side with…
The Hill
5 things to know about the latest inflation report
The Hill cited CEI’s expert on Trumps tariffs and inflation Additionally, many of Trump’s tariffs apply to component parts rather than finished consumer goods. The…
Search Posts
Blog
Fighting for Small Business: Whiskey Edition
This week marks the 85th anniversary of the end of Prohibition, and we still have a lot to learn from that dismal experiment in government overreach.
Blog
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…
Blog
New Ideas for Addressing Poverty and Inequality
While the political headlines this week are dominated by a public feud between the Secretary of the Interior and the likely incoming chairman of the…
Blog
GM Layoffs, Tariffs, and Subsidies
CEI's Ryan Young explores the lessons policymakers should learn from General Motors’ announcement of layoffs and plant closures.
Blog
Freedom and Whiskey Go Together
Recently Dave Sussman of the show Whiskey Politics featured myself and my old pals Drew Tidwell and Helen Straight of Passing Lane Films on his…
Blog
Happy 50th Anniversary to Reason
Congratulations to our friends at Reason magazine (and the Reason Foundation) on their golden anniversary. Some members of the Competitive Enterprise Institute team were recently…
Blog
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…
Patch Media
Michigan Senate & Governor’s Races
Patch Media cited CEI’s score of Senator Stabenow. Stabenow will receive $159,400 per year from her 22 years in Congress ($174,000 annual salary)…
Blog
Wealth in Disguise: Why Halloween Costumes Are Better Than Ever
Before we bid farewell to Halloween week 2018 for good, let’s take a chance to glean an economic lesson from the piles of candy, cardboard…
Washington Examiner
Supreme Court’s review of class-action settlements could have huge implications for consumers
But then, imagine that when the attorneys settle the case, they take all the money for themselves, plus a few other class members, and funnel…
Products
Is Capitalism Destroying Democracy?
When Duke University historian Nancy MacLean released her book “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America” last Summer,…
Blog
Food Truck Freedom Marches on in North Carolina
There is good news for fans of the Poor Piggy’s BBQ food truck. The town of Carolina Beach, North Carolina has reversed its anticompetitive…
Blog
Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Airline Deregulation
Forty years ago today on October 24, 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act into law. This bipartisan legislation led to the elimination…
USA Today
Tesla Shareholders, Not the Government, Should Hold the CEO Leash
Depending on whom you talk to, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is either the next Henry Ford or the next P.T. Barnum. Musk’s explosive tweets reverberate…
Blog
Mapping Public Policy Wins at the State Level
The fine folks at the State Policy Network deserve well-earned congratulations on the completion of yet another successful annual meeting, this year co-sponsored by…
Blog
Help the Poor by Making Their Lives Less Expensive
The Cato Institute’s Ryan Bourne has a great new study (and accompanying video) out about social welfare, government spending, and regulatory reform.
Blog
A Toast to the Sears Catalog
In retail, as in every industry, eras come and go. Few recent events mark the passing of an era like the announced bankruptcy of…
Blog
Discard Static Market Analysis, Let Sprint and T-Mobile Merge
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has been making a convincing case for a swift and condition-free approval from regulators of the proposed Sprint and T-Mobile…
Blog
David Henderson (1927-2018), RIP
We are sad to note the death of our good friend and strong ally, David Henderson, on September 30th in London. After a career as…
Blog
How to Articulate a Free-Market Vision for the Future
The Competitive Enterprise Institute views most market failure rationales for government intervention as wrong, overstated, or unproven (or all of the above). The Competitive Enterprise Institute…
The Heartland Institute
Research & Commentary: Two New Regulatory Reform Ideas For West Virginia
The Heartland Instituted cited CEI’s “Ten Thousand Commandments” annual survey and Fellow Ryan Young’s “REINing in Regulatory Overreach” article. “Ten Thousand Commandments” is the Competitive Enterprise…
Blog
Be a Giver with DonorsTrust and State Policy Network in Salt Lake City
This week the State Policy Network is holding its legendary annual meeting, this time in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah. With hundreds of delegates from…
Blog
William Nordhaus, Paul Romer Win 2018 Economics Nobel Prize
Both of this year’s economics Nobel laureates have been on the short list for some time. Both are deserving, as David Henderson writes in…
News Release
CEI Appeals Unlawful Conditions FCC Imposed on Cable Provider Merger
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and four individuals – John France, Daniel Frank, Jean-Claude Gruffat, and Charles Haywood – filed an appeal today with the…
Blog
New Study Reminds Regulators to Keep Focus on Consumer Welfare in Antitrust
Yesterday the good folks at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) held an important and timely event on the future of antitrust policy. The splotlight…
Government Executive
Trump Deregulatory Effort May Just Be Getting Started
Government Executive cited CEI’s Vice President for Policy Clyde Wayne Crews on Trump administration deregulation. The topic is of great interest to the conservative…
Blog
VIDEO: ‘Gov’ Is Back and He’s Here to Help
Our creative friends at the Independent Institute in California are back with an entertaining new video series that pokes fun at some of the…
The Daily Caller
Opinion: California Forces Female Quotas On Corporate Boards
The Daily Caller cited former CEI’s Senior Attorney Hans Bader on California female quotas. “It seems more likely that companies’ success leads to…
Small Business Trends
NLRB Proposes Rule Change To Restore Joint Employer Standard
Small Business Trends cited CEI’s Policy Analyst Trey Kovacs on NLRB proposed rule change. Labor policy analyst Trey Kovacs of The Competitive Enterprise…
Blog
Making a Living with Free Speech
Free speech protections in the United States are pretty far reaching, including protections for commercial free speech and occupational free speech. If you…
Blog
Congress Should Stay out of Sports Betting Regulation
For the first time in twenty-five years, Americans can legally wager on the outcome of sporting events outside of Nevada. Thanks to a Supreme…
Blog
Free-Market Groups Urge Congress to Eliminate, Not Expand, Electric Vehicle Tax Credits
In a joint letter released this week, thirty free market groups urged House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) to oppose “any effort to expand…
The Daily Caller
Trump’s Labor Board May Overturn Obama’s Joint-Employer Rule
The Daily Caller cited CEI’s Policy Analyst Trey Kovacs on NLRB’s Joint-Employer Standard proposal. “The NLRB’s proposed rule seeks to restore longstanding principles on what establishes…
Blog
Free Trade Challenges: Tariffs, Concentrated Benefits, and Diffused Costs
Tariffs hurt more people than they help. So why do those outnumbered few keep winning so many political victories at the majority’s expense? The answer…
Blog
How Free Is Your State?
Our friends at the Cato Institute have a great new promotional video for the latest edition of their annual Freedom in the 50…
Comment
CEI Comments on the Federal Trade Commission’s Hearings Regarding Competition and Consumer Protection Policy
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) respectfully submits these comments regarding the Federal Trade Commission’s forthcoming hearings to consider whether evolving business models in the new…
Blog
Hernando de Soto: How To Make the Third World Richer than the First
Our good friend Nick Gillespie interviews Peruvian economist and property rights activist Hernando de Soto about the future of prosperity in the developing world, and…
Politico
Real Talk on Capital Gains
Politico cited CEI’s platform economy video. CEI has a new video out today “extolling the benefits of the modern digital ‘platform…
PJ Media
Here’s Why Bureaucrats See a Lethal Threat in the ‘Platform Economy’
PJ Media cited CEI’s platform economy video. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has a great new video out explaining why the Platform Economy —…
Forbes
Are Entrepreneurs Creating the Growing Economy, or is the Growing Economy Enabling Entrepreneurs?
It is taken as given that taxation and regulation affect business startups and job creation. However, the many metrics seeking to explain governmental policies' effects…
Study
Traders of the Lost Ark
View Full Document as PDF With contributions by Fred L. Smith Jr., Marc Scribner, Daniel Press, and Ryan Khurana Profiles in Capitalism August…
Blog
New York City Continues War on Affordable Consumer Travel
Yesterday, the New York City Council voted to impose a one-year cap on the number of ride-hailing vehicles able to operate in the city.
Blog
Real Sin for Social Media Companies Not ‘Censorship,’ but Getting into Bed with Government
Social media outlets have been filled with commentary this week about the decisions by Apple, Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify to remove content created by…
Blog
Debunking the (Plastic) Straw Man Arguments
Of all the consumer products one might have expected to become a flashpoint for political controversy, the humble plastic drinking straw is an unlikely contender.
Blog
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,…
Op-Eds
Are Entrepreneurs Creating The Growing Economy, Or Is The Growing Economy Enabling Entrepreneurs?
It is taken as given that taxation and regulation affect business startups and job creation. However the many metrics seeking to explain governmental policies' effects on entrepreneurship probably…
Forbes
Networking and Automation are Upending the Scholarly Study of Entrepreneurship
The changing nature of work via the sharing economy, automation and networking is one among a profusion of variables (such as economic liberty) affecting modern…
National Review
The EU Attempts to Become the World’s Antitrust Regulator
The European Union recently announced it would fine Google $5 billion for alleged anti-competitive practices in the licensing of its Android smartphone operating system. There…
Blog
Made in Mékhé: An African Entrepreneur Makes the Case for Economic Freedom
When I was in Atlanta last month for the Foundation for Economic Education’s annual conference, FEEcon, I heard a lot of messages of…
Blog
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…
