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Biden’s veto of joint employer rule CRA a blow to small businesses
President Biden’s veto Friday of a Congressional Review Act (CRA) bill rolling back the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) “joint employer”…
Blog
Subsidy-free capitalism may require a constitutional amendment
Automobiles, electrification, ample consumer goods and mass marketing, a construction boom, and access to credit helped fuel the Roaring Twenties of a century ago.
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Frontier economics with Kendall Cotton
In this week’s episode we cover the diamond jubilee of the Philadelphia Society, the cost of government regulation in the UK, the…
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Town Hall
Socialism and the Cultural Revolution
In the 1953 classic film The Wild One, a girl asks Marlon Brando’s smoldering Johnny Strabler what he is rebelling against. He answers, “What’ve you got?”…
Duluth News Tribune
Jones Act Draws Critics, Defenders: Battle Lines Are Forming as the Merchant Marine Act Marks its Centennial
The Duluth News Tribune references CEI senior fellow Mario Loyola’s writing on the Jones Act: Mario Loyola, a senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute,…
Forbes
From SpaceX To George Washington: How Our First President Welcomed Balloon Flight And Predicted Air Travel
With its splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, the SpaceX Crew Dragon became the latest vehicle to continue the tradition of manned flights taking off from and…
American Greatness
U.S. Economy Suffers Biggest Quarterly Decline Ever, Under Coronavirus Lockdowns
American Greatness cites CEI senior fellows John Berlau and Iain Murray: The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are considering bills for additional coronavirus relief…
National Review
House Antitrust Hearing Discusses Everything but Antitrust Law
In Wednesday’s antitrust hearing with the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, questions from liberal members of Congress laid the groundwork for expanding the…
Blog
Cheers to Department of Labor for Protecting Retiree Investments
At the end of last month the Department of Labor published a new notice of proposed rulemaking on the investment choices that private pension fund…
Blog
The Socialist Temptation: Socialism and American Values
The way to reach people is by making sure a policy accorded with their values. In his new book, The Socialist Temptation, Iain Murray argues…
Blog
New #NeverNeeded Paper: Price Gouging
Massive shortages happened almost instantly when it became clear that the coronavirus would require a nationwide lockdown. Both Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and an Amazon…
Blog
Wealthy Millennials Not So Concerned with “Socially Responsible” Investing
In the last few years advocates of corporate social responsibility theory have been assuring everyone who would listen that a new day is dawning for…
Blog
America’s Cultural Revolution
In his forthcoming book, The Socialist Temptation, Iain Murray talks about how socialism in China produced the Cultural Revolution. The text of the book was…
News Release
House Infrastructure Spending Bill Serves as Green ATM
House Democrats will vote today on the INVEST in America Act (H.R. 2), a massive $1.5 trillion infrastructure spending bill. CEI experts across a spectrum…
Blog
George Washington’s Fight (and Ours) against Regulation without Representation
Those who have followed CEI over the years know that one of our main grievances is “Regulation Without Representation.” The phrase—an apt description of laws…
Blog
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…
Cato Journal
Book Review: The American Dream Is Not Dead (But Populism Could Kill It)
Capitalism’s populist critics, on both left and right, have got their critique backward—not only are earnings and economic opportunity not evaporating, as they claim, but…
Blog
Unintended Consequences of Price Gouging
Price gouging legislation routinely backfires. Price controls make shortages worse. In a crisis, this is especially harmful. And even if price gouging legislation were to…
Blog
Value of Employee Benefits in Eye of Beholder
Advocates of “social responsibility” and environmental, social, and governance standards for companies have little interest in their proposed requirements being voluntary, despite frequent protestations to…
Blog
“Social Responsibility” Expectations for Business Pivot from Voluntary to Mandatory
The Financial Times reported that many companies have cut dividends to shareholders because they are struggling with the current economic downturn. But even after we’ve…
Blog
There Is No Such Thing as “Safe”
Iain Murray has a great essay up at Law & Liberty today on why some groups of Americans are perceiving quarantine policies so differently from…
Blog
Lean on Business Leaders to Defend Markets
One on the main goals of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Advancing Capitalism is for more business leaders to prioritize the defense of the…
Blog
Time for a Federal Price Gouging Law?
Amazon’s vice president of public policy calls for a federal price gouging law in a recent post over at Amazon’s in-house blog. This is a…
Blog
Does Uncle Sam Support Single Moms? The Question of Federal Funds for Strip Clubs
Should U.S. taxpayer dollars be loaned to strip clubs? What would have sounded like a joke just a few months ago is now a reality…
Blog
Retro Review: Irving Kristol’s “Two Cheers for Capitalism”
Long before we began debating the wisdom of neoconservative foreign policy, Irving Kristol was writing about domestic economic policy and the future of capitalism. His…
Blog
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…
The Washington Examiner
Contact Tracing: Let the Private Sector Lead
As state and local restrictions begin to relax, the essential questions for many people are remarkably similar to what we asked in March. What will…
Blog
Shield Employers from COVID-19 Liabilities Created by Government
Now that government officials and business owners are planning for a “semi-normal” phase of post-quarantine reopening, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s recent “Implementing a National…
Blog
Antitrust Investigation of Amazon Won’t Benefit Consumers
Launching another antitrust investigation into Amazon won’t benefit consumers. The U.S. antitrust law standard is consumer harm. To stretch antitrust investigations to include data, privacy,…
Letters
Open Letter to Blackrock CEO Larry Fink
Dear Mr. Fink, As the nation stands at the edge of an economic precipice and stares into it bleakly, you and your firm, the largest…
Inside Sources
Post-Virus Economics – Working Toward a Small Business Recovery
When the stay-at-home orders are lifted, we’ll be in a race to get millions of Americans back to work. Large companies will be in a…
Blog
Robots Are Here to Make Your Job Safer and Cleaner
Positive stories about win-win results from the march of automation are everywhere in our economy, but they don’t get told and repeated enough. The workers…
Washington Examiner
Prepare for the next pandemic with a commission to kill #NeverNeeded regulations
The coronavirus pandemic needs a long-term policy response.
Blog
Antitrust Policy #NeverNeeded and Dangerous in a Crisis
The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission will now allow some collaboration between companies to address the corona virus health threat. They also warned a…
Forbes
Phase 4 Coronavirus Infrastructure Spending To Start At $2 Trillion
There’s still a chance for what next juggernauts America’s way to be made more sensible. We can liberalize infrastructure and the regulation of it rather than…
Blog
New York Times Explains Foolishness of Trump’s General Motors Nationalization
Last Friday, President Trump nationalized General Motors, ordering the company to produce as many ventilators as HHS Secretary Alex Azar says is necessary to address…
Blog
Trump Administration Suspends Tariffs, but Not Confusion, for Three Months
On Friday evening, the Trump administration announced it would stop collecting all tariff revenue for three months, effective immediately. In ordinary times, the news would…
Blog
COVID-19 Relief Bill Passes without Frivolous Green Baggage
The Senate passed a $2 trillion COVID-19 relief and economic stimulus bill by a 96-0 vote. The House passed the bill by voice vote on March 27. The…
Blog
VIDEO: Reforming Antitrust for Global Competitiveness
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation recently hosted its latest virtual event, “Reforming Antitrust Policy for an Era of Global Competitiveness.” ITIF President Rob Atkinson…
Blog
House Democrats’ Third Coronavirus Supplemental Appropriation Bill Is an Outrage
The Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act is the most irresponsible piece of fiscal legislation to come out of the profligate Congress for a…
Blog
Gingrich Praise of Huawei is Dangerously Misguided
After attempting to cover up the spread of the novel coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party is now engaged in a…
Letters
CEI Joins Coalition Letter Urging House to Reject “Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act”
We, the undersigned 26 organizations, on behalf of more than 250 million taxpayers and consumers across these United States, urge you in the strongest possible…
News Release
CEI Experts Blast Attempts to Politicize COVID-19 Relief Bill
While the nation suffers, Washington has descended into an unseemly squabble over the latest COVID-19 relief bill. Politicians from all quarters are attempting to expand…
Blog
A Billion Here, a Billion There …
Amidst all these temporary war powers, rules, regulations, commands, restrictions, bailouts, and stimulus packages, it is wise to remember the words of Milton Friedman: “Nothing…
Blog
Toilet Paper Economics: Emergency Capitalism Still Better Than Normal Socialism
There are quite a few hot takes circulating at the moment about how grocery stores temporarily running out of toilet paper amid the current coronavirus…
Blog
Sen. Toomey Defends Capitalism
This week Sen. Pat Toomey gave an excellent and much-needed speech at the Heritage Foundation on capitalism and its right-leaning critics. Toomey made clear that…
Blog
Big-Mouth CEOs Less of a Threat than Crusading Politicians
Free-market advocates are understandably skeptical of “stakeholder” capitalism—the idea that corporate managers should focus not just on returns to shareholders, but on pleasing a potentially…
Blog
VIDEO: Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word
Former Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg recently made an appearance at the American Enterprise Institute to promote his new book, Trade Is Not a Four…
FEE
Was the New Deal Really a War on Free Enterprise? It’s Complicated
Cornell University historian Lawrence Glickman has mined an impressive volume of documents and diversity of sources in order to understand the meaning of a potent…
Blog
Two Cheers for Nikki Haley’s Defense of Capitalism
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has written a bold and, for the most part, very good op-ed on the future of…
Blog
“Scientocracy” Highlights Problematic Incentives in Government Research
Yesterday CEI put on an excellent event on science policy on Capitol Hill on the new book Scientocracy: The Tangled Web of Public Science and…
Blog
New Analysis on Tax and Regulatory Issues for Carsharing Companies
Our friend and Tech Policy Podcast host Ash Kazaryan recently recorded a fascinating interview with Reason Foundation Policy Analyst Spence Purnell on how Florida (and…
Blog
Amazon Documentary Shows How Consumers Benefit
PBS’s Frontline aired its documentary, “Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos,” last night. While the tone of the piece was markedly suspicious,…
Blog
Antitrust Enforcement in 4-D
Competition is an ongoing discovery process. The reason firms exist is not to enable or restrict competition. It is to reduce transaction costs. There is…
National Review
Them the People
National Review cites senior fellow Iain Murray on democratic socialism: Murray, talking about his forthcoming book The Socialist Temptation at a CEI event in New Orleans, describes the inherent tension…
Blog
NBC/WSJ Poll: “Socialism” Not So Popular After All
NBC News and The Wall Street Journal just released a new poll that finds capitalism isn’t underwater with the American public just yet. Registered voters…
Blog
Economic Planning and Dead Mall Legends
The kind of American chain stores and retail formats that dominated the second half of the 20th century have fallen on hard times in the…
Blog
Are the Climate and Capitalism at War?
Many contemporary environmentalists share two important beliefs: a) that anthropogenic climate change is the biggest threat to the future of humanity and b) that a…
Blog
Dog Bites Man in Davos
J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently said that “most state-owned enterprises don’t do a particularly good job.” The head of the world’s largest bank…
The Atlantic
Abuse of Power Is a Dangerous Standard for Democrats to Play With
Almost the minute after the White House released its 110-page brief for the Senate impeachment trial, careful observers noticed a contradiction between the White House counsel’s…
Blog
How Antitrust Intervention Backfires
Antitrust policy interventions into the market rarely work as intended.
Letters
CEI Joins Coalition Letter on Proposed Rule on Securing the ICTS Supply Chain
On behalf of the undersigned organizations, representing a diverse coalition of taxpayer and consumer advocacy groups, we write urging you to withdraw or significantly amend…
C-Span
VIDEO: Patrick Hedger Discusses Efforts to Regulate “Big Tech”
Research Fellow Patrick Hedger joins C-Span to discuss efforts to regulate “big tech” companies.
Blog
Best Books of 2019: Year of Vindication for Mother of George Washington
August 25 of this past year was the 230th anniversary of the death of Mary Ball Washington, the mother of the first president of the…
Blog
Best Books of 2019: In Defense of Openness
Most policy proposals for fighting poverty are zero-sum. The best way to help the poor, the argument goes, is to take from the rich. Van…
Blog
Best Books of 2019: Alienated America by Tim Carney
Tim Carney’s new book on social alienation and U.S. politics, Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse, raises the bar for Trump-era political…
Blog
Best Books of 2019: Big Business by Tyler Cowen
Cowen argues that most people underestimate the amount of good that big businesses do. They make possible affordable communications, books, culture and art (and the…
Blog
Best Books of 2019: Humanomics by Vernon Smith and Bart Wilson
Smith and Wilson combine insights from their experimental economics research with insights about human character from Adam Smith’s "Wealth of Nations" and especially his 1759 book "The Theory…
Blog
Best Books of 2019: Expert Failure by Roger Koppl
Koppl uses the role of experts to explain the difference between approaching social problems from the top down versus from the bottom up. Koppl defines an…
Blog
Weighing Bad Capitalism and Good Socialism
Recently economics professor Walter Block of Loyola University New Orleans wrote a great op-ed for The Wall Street Journal titled “Bad Capitalism and Good Socialism.”…
Blog
Best Books of 2019: The Enlightened Capitalists by James O’Toole
James O’Toole, a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, has assembled an impressive collective history of dozens of innovative—and…
Blog
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…
Blog
Best Books of 2019: The Narrow Corridor
Predatory governments with high corruption, that don’t respect political and economic freedoms, are extractive. Countries with these sorts of institutions tend to be both poor…
Blog
Department of Justice Wrong to Block Sabre Acquisition of Farelogix
On January 27th, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) will attempt to block travel technology company Sabre Corporation from purchasing communications protocol innovator Farelogix, Inc. This will be the…
The Atlantic
Democrats Have Failed to Prove Their Case Against Trump
The House Judiciary Committee has published articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. Though potentially damning, the particular charges—abuse of power in connection with Ukraine…
Blog
Attorneys General Shouldn’t Hold Mergers Hostage
Last week the attorneys general of Texas and Nevada announced the withdrawal of their support of a multistate lawsuit to block the merger of cellular telephone…
Blog
Negative Interest Rates’ Impact on Public Pensions
One of the main responsibilities of pension fund managers is to work to maximize investment returns in order to grow the plan’s assets and thus…
NewsMax
CFPB Litigation Won’t Help Student Borrowers
The efforts of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Kathy Kraninger have gone a long way in reversing egregious Obama-era actions that plagued the agency,…
Blog
Corporate ‘Social Responsibility’ Must Be Voluntary, Not Mandated
The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) just wrapped an event on corporate governance titled “The Role of a Corporation: The Shareholder versus Stakeholder Debate,” and it…
Cato Journal
Review of “The Enlightened Capitalists”
James O’Toole, a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, has assembled an impressive collective history of dozens of innovative—and…
Blog
Ex-Im Reauthorization Vote Today in the House
The House of Representatives will vote on reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank today. Even if Ex-Im is reauthorized, the fight over it has already yielded a…
The Washington Times
Congress Can Fix Legal Marijuana Business Banking Problem
Violent and property crime rates have decreased over the past 25 years, so it’s telling that instances of robbery or burglary against one sort of…
Blog
VIDEO: Growth and Opportunity in the Beehive State
I’ve been interested in the work at the Center for Growth and Opportunity (CGO) at Utah State University for some time now, and I was…
Blog
The Unmeasured Costs of Federal Agency Liberation from Congress, Self-Funding, and Permanence
In considering the overall costs of regulation, little attention is given to the intractability of the administrative state itself. Congress shows little appetite for restraining…
News Release
House Hearing on Proposed Cryptocurrency Premature, Focus Should Be on Regulatory Barriers to Innovation
Ahead of a House Financial Services Committee hearing focused on Libra, a new cryptocurrency proposed by Facebook and other entities, Competitive Enterprise Institute experts John…
News Release
Supreme Court to Hear Lawsuit on CFPB Unconstitutionality: CEI Statements
On news today that the United States Supreme Court will hear a constitutional challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CEI experts said they were…
News Release
CEI Commends Executive Action Restricting Use of Regulatory Dark Matter
The White House today announced President Trump will sign two executive orders aimed at stopping the practice of agencies using guidance documents to effectively implement…
News Release
Is Capitalism Destroying Democracy?
A new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute examines that question at a time when progressives increasingly assert democracy in the United States is being…
Blog
VIDEO: Life Is Getting Better
Despite prominent headlines to the contrary, the world is not actually falling apart. As our friends at places like Human Progress tirelessly work to remind…
Blog
Antitrust Astroturf Activism
Not too long ago, I pointed out that antitrust regulation is often gamed by special interests and rent-seekers. A recent story in The Wall Street…
The Wall Street Journal
Free-Marketeers Have Taken Social Conservatives for Granted
For many free-market advocates, the recent conservative dalliance with noncapitalist policies has been as stunning as it has been swift. While President Trump’s antipathy to…
The Atlantic
The Problem With the State-Level Investigation of Google
The battlefield is getting crowded. European antitrust enforcers have been fighting America’s tech giants for years. In the U.S., both the Justice Department and Federal…
Blog
VIDEO: Prosperity Is More Than Wages
In a new video for the PolicyEd channel, economist Russ Roberts takes on the popular—though misleading—narrative that ordinary working Americans haven’t made any real economic…
CNS News
Ex-Im Bank Reauthorization Is Sadly All But Inevitable
Congress is back from its annual August recess. One of the top items on its agenda is reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank, which has an expiring…
Blog
Policy Circle 4th Annual Leadership Summit Coming to Chicago
There are a lot of useful conferences, meetings, and conventions that fill our calendars, and one that we're especially looking forward to this year is the Policy Circle’s…
Blog
Automaker Antitrust Investigation Wrong Way to Fight Cartels
Cartels need government support because they contain the seeds of their own destruction. Self-interested companies acting selfishly naturally undo their own cartels.
Blog
Lead State in Big Tech Antitrust Suit Misleadingly Inflates Google’s Size
In The Wall Street Journal today, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is spearheading a multistate antitrust investigation into Google, made an egregious error.
Blog
Study on Export-Import Bank: Repeal Is Best, Other Reforms Can Help
The Export-Import Bank is up for reauthorization by September 30. It should be shut down, as I’ve pointed out before, but reauthorization will almost certainly…
News Release
New CEI Paper Calls on Congress to Close or Reform Ex-Im Bank
A new paper released today by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) calls on Congress to either allow the U.S. Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank to close entirely…
Blog
State Attorneys General Launch Antitrust Investigations, Forget ‘Relevant Market’ Fallacy
Facebook and Google are facing separate antitrust investigations from publicity-seeking state attorneys general from both parties. New York’s Democratic attorney general is heading a joint…
News Release
Tech Antitrust Probes Good Politics for State AGs, but Terrible for Consumers
According to reports, a group of state attorneys general are planning to launch antitrust probes into Facebook and Alphabet’s Google division. New York AG Leticia…
Blog
Welfare for Billionaires: Stadium Subsidies Are Pure Cronyism
Our old friend (and former Competitive Enterprise Institute journalism fellow) Tim Carney is doing excellent work at the American Enterprise Institute these days, where he…
Blog
Facebook’s $5 Billion Privacy Fine Almost Certainly Too High
Facebook has faced intense criticism from lawmakers and regulators since last spring, when The Observer and The New York Times reported that data from over…
Staff & Scholars
Clyde Wayne Crews
Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies
- Business and Government
- Consumer Freedom
- Deregulation
Richard Morrison
Senior Fellow
- Antitrust
- Business and Government
- Capitalism and Free Enterprise
Fred L. Smith, Jr.
Founder; Chairman Emeritus
- Automobiles and Roads
- Aviation
- Business and Government
Ryan Young
Senior Economist
- Antitrust
- Business and Government
- Regulatory Reform