Featured Posts
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: The business of America with Neil Bradley
In this week’s episode we cover the economic effects of net-zero policies in blue states and Europe, top targets for environmental…
News Release
Fed cuts interest rates in December meeting: CEI analysis
The Federal Reserve today cut interest rates by 0.25 percentage points, a sign the board is wrangling with tradeoffs, say CEI economy experts. Ryan Young,…
Blog
Politics over pensions: An ESG report card for proxy voting
Unleashing Prosperity (UP) recently released a timely report, “Putting Politics Over Pensions: The 2025 Unleash Prosperity Report Card on Investment Fund Managers and Proxy…
Search Posts
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…
Blog
STB Reauthorization Bill Threatens Rail Investment
The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has scheduled a markup for tomorrow afternoon of the Surface Transportation Board (STB) Reauthorization Act (S.2777). If…
Human Events
Top-Rated Economies of the World Are Not By Coincidence
Isn’t it odd how we assign human characteristics to inanimate objects? We rank the “friendliest,” “least hospitable,” “most free” regions and countries. We nickname urban…
Blog
Celebrate Billionaire Diversity
Darrell West, a Vice President at the Brookings Institution, has a new book coming out next week on the political influence of the very wealthy,…
Blog
Obama “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” Executive Order Will Punish Firms in Pro-Worker States
Earlier, we discussed President Obama’s recent Executive Order 13,673, which “will allow trial lawyers to extort larger settlements from companies, and enable bureaucratic agencies to extract …
Blog
Duplicative New Affirmative-Action Rule Drives Up Taxpayer Costs and Restricts Competition
Does it make sense to require a park campground operator that has a few hundred employees at 120 different locations to come up with 120…
Blog
Executive Order Pressures Employers to Capitulate to Baseless Demands and Meritless Claims
A July 31 executive order from President Obama, E.O. 13,673, will make it very costly for employers to challenge dubious allegations of wrongdoing against them,…
Human Events
Business Vs. Labor is Really About Cooperation Vs. Confrontation
It’s an age old struggle—more often rhetorical than physical. Usually framed as business vs. labor, it’s really about cooperation vs. confrontation. Since humans could walk…
New York Times Magazine
Has the ‘Libertarian Moment’ Finally Arrived?
The Competitive Enterprise Institute's annual dinner and CEI president Lawson Bader are mentioned in a New York Times magazine feature article examining the opportunities…
National Review
Obama’s Idea of Transparency
Chris Horner is mentioned in a National Review article about the Obama administration’s lack of transparency: The Internal Revenue Service’s handling of the Lois Lerner…
Investor's Business Daily
States Tire Of Regulatory Overreach, Take Obama EPA To Court
William Yeatman is mentioned in an Investor's Business Daily article discussing why 12 states are suing the Environmental Protection Agency over proposed rules on greenhouse-gas emissions:…
Investor's Business Daily
Big Government Can’t Keep Up In Digital Era
Article by Michael Barone Earlier this week, I was thinking of writing a column about the lying and duplicity of ObamaCare backers who argued that…
Blog
The Let Me Google That for You Act
When it comes to government transparency, more is better. As a general principle, the government should make public as many of its documents as possible…
Austin American Statesman
Texans Should Beware of Internet Sales Tax
Texas is one of the nation’s best states for doing business, according to a recent CNBC survey. Lone Star lawmakers deserve credit for the pro-growth…
Blog
New Study Estimates around $70 billion in Financial Regulatory Costs
Complying with regulations is part of the cost of doing business. For bigger businesses that can absorb those costs (or rather, pass them on to…
