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Blog
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…
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Human Events
No Bipartisanship, Please
We’ve heard it a million times: What Washington needs is more bipartisanship, more cooperation among the parties … like the old days. To which I…
Forbes
President Obama’s ‘Syrialoquy’: To Bomb, Or Not To Bomb
To bomb, or not to bomb, that is the suggestion; Whether ’tis nobler in the polls to suffer The Slings and Arrows of…
Forbes
Betting on the Apocalypse
ONE day in October 1990, the iconoclastic economist Julian L. Simon walked out to get the mail at his house in the Washington suburb of…
News Release
Ronald Coase Dies at 102; CEI Releases Interview Footage of the Nobel-Winning Economist
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 3, 2013 – Ronald Coase, who won the 1991 Nobel prize in economics for his work on transaction costs and property rights,…
Forbes
Ronald Coase Was The Greatest Of The Many Great University Of Chicago Economists
Ronald Coase (1910-2013), the greatest of the Chicago School economists in my view, died this week. Yet, his work lives on. If it gains the…
National Review
The Pinnacle of Rent-Seeking
In this post, Hans Bader of CEI explains how Georgetown Law School has figured out how to maximize its haul of federal-financial-aid money. You’ve almost…
Forbes
We’re In A Cultural War Between The Forces Of Economic Dynamism And Stasis
In a recent column, I noted that our tribal ancestors viewed entrepreneurs with suspicion. In their view, entrepreneurs were too willing to violate…
Forbes
The Founders’ Greatest Fears About Democracy Are Playing Out
Our Founders’ greatest fear that pure democracy would inevitably destroy itself is being played out in two distinct dramas, both headed toward the same ending.
Forbes
Want To Revive Glass-Steagall? Try This Wall Of Separation Instead
A debate is raging on the left, the right, and even in libertarian circles on the best way to escape from the Too-Big-To-Fail quagmire. But…
Forbes
Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge Was The Ultimate Job Creator
There is probably no figure more emblematic of the greedy, penny-pinching capitalist than Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Dickens is often seen…
Forbes
Can Post-Constitutional America Recover Its Freedom And Prosperity?
It is by now undeniable that our Constitution is being unwound at an accelerating rate. With the wave of a blog post, the President of…
Washington Times
Approaching economic stall speed
Government regulations not justified on a cost-benefit basis, plus the cumulative weight of all regulations, result in a dead-weight loss to an economy. The United…
Forbes
The Great Obamacare Intergenerational Swindle
In the sci-fi thriller The Hunger Games, a group of young people are made to compete against each other in a fight for survival. Post-Constitutional America…
Forbes
‘Racist’ Massachusetts Voters Defeat A Hispanic Republican Senatorial Candidate
Pretty offensive headline, isn’t it? Baselessly ascribing racist motives to voters for choosing Caucasian Rep. Ed Markey over Latino challenger Gabriel Gomez in this week’s…
Forbes
Coming Soon: A Dramatic Downshift In Company Size, Plus Hours Worked
The regulatory state never sleeps, relentlessly working day and night to tilt the economic playing field in favor of the politically connected. The regulations it…
News Release
Scholar Awarded Julian L. Simon Memorial Award for Moral, Historical Defense of Freedom
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 13, 2013 – CEI is pleased to announce that Deirdre McCloskey, Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication, at the…
Forbes
Once The Obama Narrative Implodes, Reality Breaks Through
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of…
Forbes
Consternated Conferences
The conservative movement’s factions also pushed back against the often puzzling decisions of the American Conservative Union board, which controls CPAC. The gay conservative group…
Forbes
The Sad Decline of the Word Capitalism
Not everyone is giving up. One example is Fred L. Smith, chairman and founder of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who has launched the…
Forbes
Privatize almost everything
Finally, if you are having trouble with the quiz at the beginning, you might wish to go the websites of major free-market think tanks, such…
Forbes
Poverty Professionals And The Crony Capitalists Who Love Them
Yes, it looks like a wedding announcement out of The Onion, but when it comes to making a killing off the never-ending “War on Poverty,”…
Forbes
When Steven Pearlstein Bashes Capitalism, Is It Really Capitalism?
Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein recently touched on several important tensions that arise in our conceptions of capitalism—tensions that lie at the core of America’s…
Forbes
We Can’t Save Capitalism Unless We Denounce Its False Prophets
A debate is raging among free market advocates regarding the proper posture to take with respect to Too Big to Fail (TBTF) banks. This has…
Cato
Public Choice and Political Advocacy
In the three decades since I founded the Competitive Enterprise Institute, I have seen the pro–free market intellectual movement grow by…
Cato
Slowly, GOP shifting on same-sex marriage
The final safe haven within the conservative movement for anti-gay bigotry — the American Conservative Union’s CPAC convention, held last week in Maryland — received…
Cato
Conservative case for gay marriage
In more signs of change, the organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference were widely criticized by mainstream conservatives for excluding pro-gay organizations from this…
Cato
GOP not wedded to views on gays
And at the Conservative Political Action Committee convention, a panel sponsored by the Competitive Enterprise Institute drew a large and approving crowd for a discussion…
Cato
CPAC stars: Ten Republicans to watch (whether you love or loathe them)
CPAC organisers denied GOProud a booth at this year’s event. But the Competitive Enterprise Institute used its position as a CPAC sponsor, which gave it…
The Guardian
CPAC 2013: An angry and beaten US right fires out scattergun wacky policies in hunt for victory
CPAC embraced Trump but did not invite gay Republicans, with their GOProud organisation reduced to a single speaker on…
News Release
CEI at CPAC: “A Rainbow on the Right”
Last night at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CEI hosted an event titled: “A Rainbow on the Right: Growing the Coalition, Bringing Tolerance Out of…
The Guardian
CPAC Diary: Showdown on Gay Street
This panel, put on by the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, condemned intolerance from CPAC organizers, who were giving voters away by dismissing gay voters. They…
Wall Street Journal
He’s Still a Player
Many musicians have gotten their start in garages and, in the tech era, so have many entrepreneurs. But Herb Alpert has the rare distinction of…
Wall Street Journal
GOProud going to CPAC — well, sort of
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is sponsoring the panel entitled “A Rainbow on the Right: Growing the Coalition, Bringing Tolerance Out of the Closet.” As of…
Wall Street Journal
How Gay Rights Got into CPAC
Two years after GOProud was evicted as a CPAC sponsor, the gay conservative group’s president, Jimmy LaSalvia, has been invited to speak on a “pro-gay…
Wall Street Journal
Finally, the Gays Have Come Back to CPAC
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a D.C.-based libertarian think tank that largely focuses on economic and environmental policy, will hold a CPAC panel featuring two…
Forbes
After The Sequester, Bring On The Blame Game
Should a miracle occur and the pending sequester actually kick in to reduce the growth of federal spending—said slowdown derided as “draconian budget cuts” even…
Forbes
Secrecy surrounds company suing Consumer Product Safety Commission
“The public does not have a right to know everything. Records are sealed for many and various reasons, generally to protect the innocent,” said Fran…
National Post
Frum Wrong About Budget Cuts
David Frum claims modest automatic budget cuts scheduled to go into effect in the U.S.A. in March will somehow harm the economy if they aren’t…
Washington Examiner
Letter to the Editor: Sequestration Cuts Will Increase Long-Term Growth
Re: "Drop in GDP a preview for area," Jan. 31 This article falsely claims that the U.S. economy shrank in the last quarter of 2012…
Financial Times
Letter to the Editor: Companies should never apologise for making products people enjoy
Sir, The key (if unintended) message of Alan Rappeport’s analysis of Coca-Cola’s response to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “anti-obesity” measures is that corporate appeasement…
Forbes
It’s Time For A Transparency-In-Government-Statistics Law
Question: When does a government agency chartered with collecting and disseminating economic data morph into a propaganda ministry? Answer: When it allows unaccountable bureaucrats answerable…
Washington Post
Fred Smith passes the torch at CEI
Most think tanks are earnest places — and then there’s the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “People say, ‘CEI has fun people, but some of them are…
Blog
Adam Smith’s Recommendation To End Illegal Immigration
Restrictions on immigration have created a black market in labor and movement. Currently, the U.S. government issues only 10,000 green cards to workers who lack higher…
Right Side News
Economic Freedom Declines Again; Government Control Is Bad for Your Health
Economic freedom has declined under the Obama administration, and America’s rank has repeatedly fallen on the Index of Economic Freedom and other rankings issued by…
Forbes
Deconstructing Obamanomics: What Is The Real Goal?
As President Barack Obama begins his second term, democratically returned to office by a majority of Americans who seem to buy what he is selling, it…
Blog
James Buchanan, 1919-2013
Economics has lost one of its greats. James Buchanan has passed away at age 93. Born on a Tennessee farm in 1919, he continued working…
Forbes
Clement Moore Revisited: Twas The Night Before Fiscliff
Twas the night before Fiscliff, when all through the House Not a statesman was stirring, not even to grouse. Neither bills nor amendments…
AJC
Tax pledge proves its worth
Grover Norquist’s Tax Pledge isn’t perfect. But it successfully forces lawmakers and taxpayers to address America’s current fiscal path. Opponents of the pledge say it…
Forbes
Can Union Backed Crowdfunding Rescue Hostess From Bankruptcy?
By now you’ve heard at least two opposing versions of the Tale of the Tearful Twinkies. In the first, a great American brand was driven…
The College Fix
Obama’s New College Bailout Will Fuel Skyrocketing Tuition
So argues Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute: We wrote earlier about perverse federal financial aid policies that encourage colleges to jack…
