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Don’t Confuse the Platform with the Train
Executive Summary Should social media companies be regulated like common carriers? To answer that question, this paper describes the functions and origins of social…
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The State Antitrust Paradox
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY American antitrust law is the bedrock of competition policy in the United States. It has also proven among the most intellectually challenging…
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Central Bank Digital Currencies Threaten Global Stability and Financial Privacy
Executive Summary As digital currencies go mainstream around the world, governments and international financial bodies are seeking to develop ways to regulate them. Some…
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The High Costs of the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act
Concerns about plastics waste in the world’s oceans have raised genuine issues about the impact of plastics on the environment. In response, Sen. Jeff…
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Why Carbon Taxes Are Anti-Growth, Anti-Consumer, and Politically Dangerous for Conservatives
A tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, contrary to its advocates’ claims, is a market-rigging policy, not a free market one. Its purpose is…
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Ban Overboard: Exploring Solutions to Ocean Pollution
Heartbreaking photos and videos of wildlife harmed by plastics litter have rightly raised public concerns about plastics in the ocean. In response, state and…
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“They’re Taking My Stuff!”
What You Need to Know about Seizure and Forfeiture…
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The Immeasurable Benefits of Plastics to Humanity
It is popular these days for people to proclaim that they are giving up plastics. Just browse the Web and you will find all…
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How Plastics Benefit Wildlife and the Environment
Several proposals designed to end America’s so-called addiction to plastics are currently pending in Congress. They include the Break-Free from Plastics Act (H.R. 2238,…
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Screening Out Innovation
Executive Summary This report addresses the appropriate antitrust standards for vertical mergers. It first provides an overview, and then analyzes a specific application to the Federal…
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Ten Thousand Commandments 2021
View Full Report Here Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual survey of the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations,…
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Preserving Section 230 Is Key to Maintaining the Free and Open Internet
Passed as part of the Telecommunications Decency Act of 1996, Section 230 was intended to clarify liability rules online and to encourage sites to…
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The Protect the Right to Organize Act Empowers Unions at Workers’ Expense
View the Full Document as PDF The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act is touted by its supporters as advancing…
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Frequently Asked Questions on ESG Theory
View Full Document as PDF Q: What does “ESG” stand for? A: ESG is short for “environmental, social, and governance.”…
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Environmental, Social, and Governance Theory
View Full Document as PDF EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The concept known as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) theory has a long history…
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A Way Forward for Vaccination Passports
View Full Document as PDF Countries around the world have announced plans to implement vaccine passports—electronic or paper credentials that show…
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The Annual Percentage Rate Is the Wrong Metric for Assessing the Cost of a Short-Term Loan
Think calculating the cost of a loan is simple? Not under the longtime rules of the federal government and many states. Consider the following…
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Free to Prosper
View Full Document as PDF Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 117th Congress highlights specific steps lawmakers can take to rein…
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Labor of Love: A Fred Smith Story
View Full Book as PDF Edited by Kent Lassman, Amanda France, and Ivan Osorio INTRODUCTION View Introduction…
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U.S. Antitrust’s Greatest Misses
Today’s advocates for expanding antitrust regulation often cite famous antitrust cases of the past to suggest that stricter antitrust enforcement can enhance consumer…
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Modernizing Environmental Reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act
View Full Document as PDF The Trump administration has finalized a new set of rules to implement the National Environmental Policy…
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EPA Should Revise Its Assessment of Medical Supply Sterilant
The COVID-19 crisis is a stark reminder of the importance of maintaining critical medical supplies. Not only must policy makers ensure that the market…
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Reforming Surface Transportation for Long-Term Sustainability
View Full Document as PDF EXECUTIVE SUMMARY When policy makers are asked to assess the condition of highway infrastructure, their responses tend…
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Would More Electric Vehicles Be Good for the Environment?
Executive Summary The environmental advantages of electric vehicles (EVs) over internal combustion engine-powered vehicles are as obvious as the lack of a tailpipe emitting…
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European Union Antitrust Policy in the Digital Era
The European Commission wants Google to become less connected, the German government wants Facebook to use less data, and the French government wants to…
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Science May Be the Easy Part
The COVID-19 pandemic has already infected more than 7 million Americans, claiming over 200,000 lives in the U.S. Since the disease is caused by a…
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Repeal #NeverNeeded Antitrust Laws that Hinder COVID-19 Response
Big technology firms have been invaluable in easing the burden of quarantine for millions of consumers[1] and businesses.[2] Unfortunately, the Department of Justice, the Federal…
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The Double Standards of Cannabis and Nicotine
View Full Document as PDF Executive Summary The principal benefit of recreational cannabis, as the name implies, is recreation. Many who…
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Terrible Tech 2.0
View Full Document as PDF Executive Summary If you are looking for bipartisanship in Washington, D.C., the technology policy sector may…
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Repeal or Reform the Jones Act
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Tens of millions have lost their jobs. Unleashing the innovation and productivity…
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#NeverNeeded Price Gouging Laws Would Harm COVID-19 Response
Price gouging becomes a hot topic during every crisis. It has become especially topical during the COVID-19 crisis. Almost overnight, the need exploded for goods…
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Repeal of #NeverNeeded Regulations Can Help People Stay Home and Safe During the COVID-19 Crisis
As individuals and businesses continue to address the COVID-19 health crisis, access to technologies and services that have enabled large swaths of the economy to…
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How to Make Sure Reformed #NeverNeeded Regulations Stay That Way
Policy makers at all levels of government have waived more than 600 regulations in response to the COVD-19 crisis.[1] Those rules were…
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Repeal #NeverNeeded Trade Barriers
The most important priorities during the coronavirus pandemic are keeping people safe and minimizing economic damage. Trade barriers are harming both priorities. This paper contains…
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Policy Principles: Consumer Privacy
PRIVACY The right to privacy is a bedrock principle of a free society and essential to today’s economy. Yet, privacy protection is an ever-evolving field.
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Take Net Neutrality Regulations off the Table for Good
Congress should eliminate the looming threat of net neutrality regulations to Internet service providers (ISPs). Regulation deters investment and the coronavirus health crisis has revealed…
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America Last
The Jones Act requires any ship traveling between two U.S. points to be U.S.-manufactured, -owned, -flagged, and -crewed. This heavy-handed protectionist measure was enacted in 1920…
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End All National Institutes of Health Grants to the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer
As the Trump administration considers defunding the World Health Organization (WHO) because of its handling of the COVID-19 crisis, it should also make sure that…
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Perverse Psychology
Cigarette smoking is a lethal habit that kills approximately half of those who sustain it over their lifetime. But, contrary to popular belief, the nicotine…
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Government-Run Payment Systems Are Unsafe at Any Speed
For people quarantining during the COVID-19 health crisis, electronic payments proved essential to obtaining needed supplies, from groceries to medicines, while maintaining social distancing and…
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Lift #NeverNeeded Plastics Regulations and Bans – Permanently
Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, lawmakers have finally begun considering the unintended impacts of bans on single-use plastics, particularly the potential for disease transmission from…
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The Case against Social Media Content Regulation
As repeatedly noted by most defenders of free speech, expressing popular opinions never needs protection. Rather, it is the commitment to protecting dissident expression that…
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Ten Thousand Commandments 2020 – Executive Summary
Download the Executive Summary as a PDF Spending control and deficit restraint are indispensable to a nation’s stability and long-term economic health. Yet alarm…
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Ten Thousand Commandments 2020
Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual survey of the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations, and how they affect American consumers,…
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Deploy Rational Science-Based Policies for Medical Plant Sterilization
Several medical supply sterilization plants have shut down during the past year because of unwarranted fearmongering about ethylene oxide (EtO), a gas used to sterilize…
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Lift #NeverNeeded Regulations that Make Energy More Expensive
Low-income households, which are more likely to suffer from unemployment and other stresses during the COVID-19 crisis, spend much more of their household budget on…
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Pen, Phone, and Eraser?
There have now been several layers of congressional rescue-and-stimulus response to the coronavirus crisis, and there will be more “phases” to come. Given partisan discord,…
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Narrow the Focus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may well have taken their eye off the ball by…
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Profiles in Capitalism: The Role of the Business Leader in Public Affairs and Philanthropy
When Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) President Kent Lassman sat down to interview Ariel Corporation CEO Karen Wright at the CEI Summit in New Orleans in…
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The Scientific Case for Vacating the EPA’s Carbon Dioxide Endangerment Finding
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2009 “Endangerment Finding” from carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases grants the agency a legal mandate that can…