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News Release
Statement in Support of Provisions of the RSC’s Budget Reconciliation Framework
I write to commend the Republican Study Committee for certain key deregulatory provisions contained in Making the American Dream Affordable Again: a Framework for…
News Release
Inflation rises in December, Trump’s Fed threats raise questions about monetary policy future: CEI analysis
The CPI for December rose 0.3 percent, bringing year-over-year inflation up to 2.7 percent. While the report suggests monetary policy is unlikely to change soon,…
News Release
Trump’s criminal investigation of Fed chairman a mistake: CEI analysis
The Trump Justice Department’s newly announced criminal investigation of the Federal Reserve chairman, ostensibly concerning renovations of the Fed’s headquarters, is a mistake. Ryan Young,…
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Blog
FSOC Misunderstands Leverage, Threatens Risk Management
The Financial Stability Oversight Council recently released its “Update on Review of Asset Management Products and Activities,” in which it questions “how certain asset…
Daily Caller
Be The Earth Day You Want To See
With Earth Day upon us, millions of Americans will be looking for a way to observe the event and celebrate the planet’s bounty and resources.
Blog
Business Leaders Mount the Barricades
This has been a good week for capitalist backbone. As Kim Strassel discusses in the Wall Street Journal today, we’ve seen two high profile…
Blog
CEOs Confront Anti-Capitalist Rhetoric
Another CEO of a big American company has spoken up about the charge that he and his employees are “destroying the moral fabric” of…
Blog
How to Address Income Inequality
Over at the Foundation for Economic Education, Iain Murray and I give a short preview of our two forthcoming CEI papers on income inequality…
Foundation for Economic Education
Why Is the Middle Class So Angry?
The middle class is angry. Feeling left out of sharing in the nation’s prosperity the way they used to, they are increasingly turning to…
Blog
Is GE a Capitalist Good Guy or a Corporate Bad Guy?
General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt has an interesting op-ed today in the Washington Post, hitting back against charges that his company is “destroying…
Daily Signal
8 Questions for PayPal on Its Decision to Boycott North Carolina
The Daily Signal discusses a North Carolina law with Hans Bader. The new North Carolina law also requires cities and localities to follow…
Law360
Alaska Air, Virgin America Face Bumpy Antitrust Ride
CEI Fellow Marc Scribner speaks to Law360 about a proposed merger between Alaska Air and Virgin America: “If you look at their…
Palmetto Business Daily
Land use expert warns of property rights infringement by “unelected bureaucrats” on the Charleston BAR
The Palmetto Business Daily discusses property rights infringement by the Charleston Board of Architectural Review with Marc Scribner. “The unelected bureaucrats on the…
Blog
Freedom of Contract at Risk in Carcano v. McCrory
Virginia’s Dillon rule prevents cities and counties from regulating the employment practices of private businesses. That bars them from setting minimum wages higher than…
Daily Signal
NBA’s Threatening North Carolina Is Textbook Cultural Cronyism
The Daily Signal references Hans Bader's writing on a bill in North Carolina pertaining to employment regulations. The second provision—the employment provision—is simply a…
CNS News
Skittish About ‘Capitalism’ – But Who Is Really Rigging the Game?
This political season, Americans are skittish about capitalism. Some fear it will create inequality and wage stagnation, while others simply lack clarity on what capitalism…
Foundation for Economic Education
Government Targets the App Economy
The sharing economy promises such radical change that economist Klaus Schwab is calling it The Fourth Industrial Revolution. But unlike the previous revolutions, its…
Forbes
Three Decades On, The Fight For Economic Freedom Continues
Americans want honorable, thoughtful government but are no longer sure that result is possible. Government has now grown so gigantic, arrogant, powerful, and pervasive that…
Watchdog.org
Have conservatives been hypocritical on cronyism?
Watchdog.org reports on a CPAC panel discussion on cronyism moderated by Bill Frezza. Bill Frezza, host of the Real Clear Radio Hour, kicked…
Blog
UnChartered Cronyism: The FCC’s Attempts to Block Cable Merger
When you hear about “crony capitalism,” what comes to mind? The Export-Import Bank? The ethanol mandate? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Tax credits and loan…
National Review
Are There Economic Policy Answers to Trump Voters’ Woes?
Tim Carney, in the Washington Examiner, well sums up the main grievances of both Trump and Sanders voters: the lack of prospects facing blue collar…
Blog
Market Dominance Doesn’t Last; Regulation Shouldn’t Either
One of the justifications for heavy regulation of large companies is that they use market power to crush competition and maintain market dominance. Yet the…
The Freeman
Why Government Should Not Regulate the App Economy
In Damon Runyon’s Broadway stories (and in the musical Guys and Dolls), a gambler named Nathan Detroit hosts New York’s oldest established floating crap game,…
Craft Brewing Business
AB-InBev buys UK’s Camden Town Brewery, crowdfunding investors score big
Craft Brewing Business mentions John Berlau's article on how crowdfunding provides opportunities for craft breweries. The article (nicely written by John Berlau) goes on…
Blog
Three Economists Had the Answer to the President’s Questions
Last night at the State of the Union, the President asked three questions regarding domestic policy (I’ll leave the foreign policy question to others). They…
Reuters
“Too Big to Fail” Policy Failing Small Banks: NCPA
Reuters reports on John Berlau's new study for the National Center for Policy Analysis, that explores the failures of the "to big to fail" docrtine and what Congress should…
Forbes
How Cars Saved The Montgomery Bus Boycott
December 5, 1955, was a key date in the struggle to eliminate racial segregation laws in the United States. On that date, the African American…
Forbes
Congress Is A Terrible Business Partner
We are beginning to see the unraveling of the Faustian bargain that private health insurance companies made with the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress…
Blog
Much to Be Thankful For
Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and all of us have much to be thankful for. Over at Inside Sources, I have a Julian Simon-inspired take on the…
Blog
Thanksgiving: Massachusetts Discovers Property Rights
Thanksgiving is a day layered in tradition and myth. The standard story makes much of the creative efforts of our ancestors, the assistance provided by…
Blog
A Fundamental Misunderstanding of Free Enterprise
Today, in The Guardian, columnist Zoe Williams repeats an idea often advanced by progressives, that entrepreneurial activity is dependent on the action of others, especially “government,”…
Blog
Anti-Capitalism on Campus
Prof. Brad Thompson of Clemson University writes this week in Minding the Campus on the impact of corporate donations to institutions of higher education. In particular, he describes…
Blog
Calling All Public Choice Scholars
Earlier this month the Cato Institute generously hosted a small roundtable discussion of CEI’s recent study “Virtuous Capitalism: Why there Is Less Corruption in…
Blog
Virtuous Capitalism in Theory and Practice
Government is responsible for billions and billions of dollars of corruption and corporate welfare. Considering the potential returns on investment compared to honest entrepreneurship, it…
Forbes
Virtuous Capitalism In Theory And Practice
Capitalism has a bad reputation. Many people see it as corrupt, uncaring, and in bed with politicians. And popular wisdom isn’t always wrong. For example,…
Foundation for Economic Education
How the State Keeps You Working Long Hours
Entrepreneur Tim Ferriss found he had a mega-hit on his hands with his 2007 book, The 4-Hour Workweek, a paean to a new attitude toward…
National Review
Why Liberals Secretly Love Corporations
Iain Murray, in his article for the National Review, investigates why the Left pushes regulatory policies that support the old corporate structure even though this is contrary to…
Blog
Sell a Kidney, Save a Life
Last week I blogged about the idea that some things should not be part of a market economy, and highlighted one rather silly example of…
The Freeman
Depression-Era Laws Threaten the Sharing Economy
Imagine you’re driving for Uber or Lyft. As an independent contractor, you enjoy setting your own work hours, picking up people you like chatting with…
Blog
Virtuous Capitalism, or, Why So Little Rent-Seeking?
The venerable Fred Smith and I have a new paper out today. Click here to read it. In the paper, we try to solve the Tullock…
Business Ethics Highlights
CEI: There’s Less Corruption In Business Than You Think
The Business Ethics Highlights features CEI's article on rent-seeking. If the data show rent-seeking behavior by firms to be so effective, why don’t…
Blog
ABI MillerCoors Merger Won’t Harm the Craft Beer Movement
The folks at Food & Water Watch are pissed. And I don’t mean “pissed” as in drunk; they are mad as hell about the proposed…
Blog
Betting on the Future: 25 Years Later
Today is the 25th anniversary of the famous bet between economist Julian Simon and biologist Paul Ehrlich over the price of five metals: chromium, copper,…
Blog
Free Enterprise: Sometimes We Forget
When we find ourselves debating specific issues having to do with economics and business, we often forget how overwhelming the evidence is for the superiority…
Study
The Case Against the Overseas Private Investment Corporation
Full Document Available in PDF The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) is a U.S. federal government agency with three key policy objectives:…
Blog
A First Look at Markets without Limits
Georgetown University professors Jason Brennan and Pete Jaworski (left) have a new book out with a fascinating premise: anything that it is morally permissible…
Blog
Feds Double Down on Failed Affordable Housing Mandates
Federal affordable housing mandates do little to increase homeownership rates, but they did help cause a devastating financial crisis in 2008 by encouraging risky lending. Yet the Federal…
Blog
The FTC Targets Apple Music: Part III
This is the third in a series of essays on the FTC’s investigation of Apple Music. In Part II of this series, we demonstrated that, even…
Blog
The Government Makes a Terrible Boyfriend
He’s from the government, and he’s here to help. That’s the comic premise of this summer’s best YouTube video series, “Love Gov,” from the…
Blog
Mount Vernon Cheers: A Song to Commemorate “I, Whiskey”
Our Indiegogo campaign for CEI’s new documentary “I Whiskey” is closing soon. So far, we have raised almost $75,000, but it’s not over yet.
Blog
William Faulkner Said it Best: “Civilization Begins with Distillation”
"Making whiskey is but one piece of the Great Story of Spirits. The Big Picture is the story of incremental progress, of continual innovation by…
Blog
Why Thieves Hate Free Markets
Don Boudreaux over at Café Hayek has just given a 2015 boost to a smart 2012 video from Learn Liberty on social cooperation in…
Blog
The FTC Targets Apple Music: Part II
This is the second in a series of essays on the FTC’s investigation of Apple Music. Part I discussed the reason for the FTC’s investigation as…
Blog
The FTC Targets Apple Music: Part I
When launching a new product, the goal is to create excitement, as any company will tell you. But Apple’s newly launched music streaming service, Apple…
Blog
Bastiat Society Rallies Business Leaders Together
My venerable colleague Fred Smith and I just returned from the Hoosier State, where we were honored to be guests of the Indianapolis chapter of the …
WND
The Obama-Clinton Cloward-Piven legacy
The WND cites CEI`s Bill Frezza on Obama`s welfare reforms: In his Forbes article, “Deconstructing Obamanomics: What is the Real Goal?,” Bill Frezza, an MIT…
Blog
The Persistent Truth of Income Mobility
There’s a lot being written these days about income (and wealth) inequality, and how a free market economy allegedly exacerbates the divide between the rich and…
Blog
What Cartoons Can Teach Us about Capitalism
The Freeman has an excellent article by FEE advisory board member Robert Anthony Peters on economic lessons in popular culture—in this case focusing on the wealthiest…
Blog
Do Conservatives Really Care about the Poor?
American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks has a new book out this week, The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous…
Blog
Join the “I, Whiskey” Team
The Competitive Enterprise Institute's newest film project, I, Whiskey: The Spirit of the Market, is currently in production, and you can help make it…
Blog
Highlights of FreedomFest 2015
The happy warriors of CEI have returned from our sojourn to Las Vegas and the excitement of FreedomFest 2015: Discover the New American Dream. The…
The College Fix
Two-thirds of subsidized financial aid swallowed up by tuition increases, Federal Reserve Bank study finds
The College Fix quotes CEI`s Hans Bader on federal student aid programs: The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Hans Bader cites…
Blog
Advocating Free Trade, Not Foreign Aid for the World’s Poverty
A Review of the Poverty Cure Documentary Series Poverty Cure is a six part documentary series directed and hosted by Michael Matheson Miller, produced by…
Blog
2015 CEI Dinner Movie: The Magnificent 7
Complete with cowboy boots, wagon wheels, lamps made out of whiskey bottles, and wanted posters of the most “notorious” U.S. regulators—if you’re talking to a…
Blog
Excerpts from Carly Fiorina’s Address at CEI’s Annual Dinner
Keynote address by business and nonprofit leader Carly Fiorina delivered at the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual dinner on June 11, 2015. Excerpts from text as…
Forbes
Memo To Presidential Campaigns — Federal Regulation Matters More Than Spending
President Barack Obama’s federal budget proposal for FY 2016 sought $3.999 trillion in discretionary, entitlement, and interest spending; the Republican alternative a little…
Blog
Politics vs. Principle: Export-Import Bank Edition
On the merits, the case for closing the Export-Import Bank is a slam-dunk. This has made life difficult for the bank’s supporters, especially since the…
Forbes
Now More Than Ever, Make ABC ‘s George Stephanopoulos Moderate Presidential Debates
I’ve never been a fan of the “objective media” platitude, preferring competing biases to pretended objectivity. The crucial corollary to that, though, is that…
Playbill
Feds Issue Statement Countering Report About Endangered Times Square Billboards
The theatre magazine Playbill quotes CEI's Marc Scribner on the outdated legislation threatening Times Square's billboards: The Washington Post reported, "The threat to…
Quartz
There’s a Rumor Going Around That New York Was Ordered to Take Down its Times Square Billboards
Quartz quotes Marc Scribner on the outdated legislative threat to Times Square's billboards: Meanwhile, some critics are tracing the unintended consequence straight back…
Volokh Conspiracy
How the Federal Government Could Use Conditional Spending to Force the Removal of Times Square Billboards
The Volokh Conspiracy links to Marc Scribner's writing on the bad laws behind the threat to Times Square's Billboards: Marc Scribner explains why the…
Blog
Deceptive Discrimination Laws
Discrimination may be bad for business, but that doesn’t mean laws banning discrimination are good for business. Often, these laws are like the proverbial Trojan…
Blog
CEI Statements on the Failed Comcast-Time Warner Merger
CEI responded to the news that the Comcast-Time Warner merger failed. You can read more analysis from CEI's Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews here.
Blog
Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger Derailed
Today we’ve learned again that bureaucrats and their enormous kingdoms come before consumer welfare. The collapse of the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger merely because of the interference of government,…
Blog
Capitalism Makes a Comeback on Campus
There’s exciting stuff going on in the world of higher education these days for fans of free markets. Just last week, the University of Arizona’s …
Blog
How to Help Tesla and Taxpayers
Policies aimed at reducing auto emissions in California and 10 other states are having a troubling set of unintended consequences, according to a recent editorial at…
Blog
When Kittens Explode
A fascinating Kickstarter funding campaign just ended yesterday, and it was a major one. A new card game with the alarming title of “Exploding…
Blog
Zenefits: A Disruptive Company Fights Back
Sometimes cronyism in the business world takes the form of a company receiving special government favors and subsidies—the now-infamous Solyndra, for example—but sometimes it takes…
Blog
The Empire Strikes Back!
Right-of-center groups have for some time become a bit complacent. Sure the left had the universities, the media, and pop culture—but we had the think…
Blog
Educating Tomorrow’s Business Leaders on Markets and Politics
This weekend I attended a fascinating event at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business on the subject of economic inequality. Prof. …
Blog
Premature Capitulation?
Over the decades I’ve spent in this Heart of Darkness (a.k.a., the bowels of American politics), I’ve learned two lessons that have encouraged the steady…
Study
Free to Prosper
With the start of the 114th Congress comes a fresh opportunity to address the challenges created by a broken government. To kick off this new…
Blog
CEI Reacts to President’s SOTU Address
Lawson Bader reacts to the State of the Union Address: “Whenever a president starts talking about economic inequality and more ways the government can help,…
Blog
Central “Planning” Often Creates Disorder, While the Free Market Provides Consistency
Government planning often contains contradictory elements that provide inconsistent signals for regulated entities about how to behave. For example, the New Deal of the 1930s…
CNS News
Government’s Mixed Messages – ‘Making Marriage the Exception Rather Than the Rule’
Beginning in the 1930’s, the federal government sharply increased central planning of the economy and society. (Perhaps as a consequence, the economy…
Blog
The Future and the Regulated
Lawrence Summers, the enfant terrible of the economics profession, has written a thoughtful column on “Our Loss of Faith in the Future,” noting that…
Blog
Seven Quotes about Communism: Take 2
A few years ago I assembled several quotes about Communism that I thought would make good epitaphs for it. Unfortunately, the ideology has turned…
Washington Examiner
What Lame Ducks Might Do
Iain Murray spoke with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Congress' Lame Duck December Q: With just a handful of legislative days remaining in December, what concerns…
Blog
Thanksgiving and Markets
When the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony celebrated the first Thanksgiving on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod, they shared a feast with the Pokanoket tribe, in thanks to…
Blog
Corporate Action against Disease Points Way to Resiliency Strategy for Developing World
In a piece at The Freeman today, I examine how corporations in the developing world have reacted to the threat to their workers from diseases such…
The Freeman
Greedy Corporations Save Lives
With Ebola wreaking havoc across West Africa, news that a private company has virtually eradicated the disease on its extensive property invites sighs of relief.
News Release
New Report “Beyond Gruber” Shows Government Officials Flip-Flopped on Obamacare Subsidies Story
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 – Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) published a report by businessman and finance expert Scot Vorse highlighting a growing body…
Study
Top 5 Things Congress Should Consider During Lame-Duck Session
View the document here During Congress’ lame-duck session, both Republicans and Democrats will dig into a number of stalled pieces of legislation…
Human Events
If it Walks Like a Lame Duck
I’ve always found the term “lame duck Congress” an affront to waterfowl everywhere. And it’s odd to boot. Why does it matter if they have…
Blog
In Memoriam: Gordon Tullock
I write this Tuesday night as TV pundits drone on in the background. The Republicans may win control of the Senate, though races are too…
Blog
Gordon Tullock, R.I.P.
Imagine making Nobel-worthy contributions to a discipline in which you had almost no formal training. It’s an amazing feat. Gordon Tullock is one of the…
Blog
Volunteering Violation Vignettes
Did you know it is against the law to volunteer for a for-profit business? The issue has surfaced in a trio of varied settings recently.
Forbes
Hillary Clinton: Businesses Don’t Create Jobs (Just Speaking Fees)
This article was originally published at Forbes on October 26, 2014 Hillary Clinton’s October 24 speech supporting Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts Democratic…
Blog
The Tesla File: Government Favors Cut Both Ways
Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors has become a fascinating case study in economic freedom in recent years, although the narrative is a complicated one. The…
Products
What Is Plouffe’s Battle Plan?
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s decision to hire former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe raises some interesting questions. Uber, a social network offering consumers an attractive…
Blog
Must Every Product in the World Be Safe Enough for Children?
The New York Times reported Friday on the David-and-Goliath battle of businessman Shihan Qu, the last of the rare earth magnet renegades. Mr. Qu’s…
Human Events
He Who Can, Does. He Who Cannot Takes a Job with a Federal Safety Agency
A former colleague, who lived and worked in the U.S. on a valid work permit, would travel back to Canada periodically to renew the permit.
Blog
Billionaire Diversity: Foreign vs. Domestic
Brookings Institution scholar Darrell West, whose new book Billionaires: Reflections on the Upper Crust is being released later this week, has another intriguing graphic…
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
Ryan Young
Senior Economist and Director of Publications
- Antitrust
- Business and Government
- Regulatory Reform