Scott Lincicome Earlier this week, we published two new essays for Cato’s Defending Globalization project: “Globalization Helps Women Thrive,” by Christine McDaniel, explains that trade and foreign investment have boosted economic opportunity, living standards, and equality for women around the world. “Changing the Trade and Development Consensus,” by Douglas Irwin, examines the process by which economists Ian Little, Jagdish Bhagwati, ...
Andrew Gillen Note: This post updates last month’s post, and given recent developments will be the last monthly update. The biggest changes from last month include: The Biden administration has abandoned both parts of the Higher Education Act plan. Updated total number of borrowers and dollar amount of loan forgiveness to date. Mass student loan forgiveness is terrible policy (see this ...
Jeffrey A. Singer ProPublica has released a detailed report about the controversy surrounding the shaken baby syndrome hypothesis. Reporter Pamela Colloff chronicles the travails of Nick Flannery, an IT specialist on paternity leave who called 911 after his baby’s eyes rolled back, his body suddenly stiffened, and he lost consciousness. Paramedics revived the baby and rushed him to the hospital, ...
Michael F. Cannon A while back, after several conversations with Ezra Klein that afforded me a window into how his mind works, I made this prediction: I have sensed this for some time and now I’m ready to predict it: Ezra Klein will die a libertarian. And it won’t be a deathbed conversion, either. Right now, I think he would call himself ...
Clark Neily Imagine you were operating a shark-diving charter boat in Florida and came across a long fishing line that you believed to be the work of poachers. You haul in the line, release a number of fish, and take the rig back to the marina after notifying state officials. If it turns out you were mistaken and had actually ...
Norbert Michel and Jerome Famularo In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States experienced a much higher rate of inflation than at any time during the prior few decades. Like the prices of many goods and services, the cost of housing rose rapidly, with the median home price increasing by almost $100,000. (Figure 1.) Unsurprisingly, many potential homebuyers ...
Robert A. Levy On a fairly regular basis, Americans are warned that the federal government may no longer be able to meet its legal obligations if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. The result: default, with financial chaos to follow. Despite that stark warning, political agreement remains elusive. Liberals will not accept meaningful spending cuts and conservatives will not accept meaningful ...
Tad DeHaven Greenfield investment occurs when a foreign company establishes (or expands) a business in the US. Most foreign direct investment (FDI) in the US are acquisitions. However, the “US affiliates of foreign multinationals spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year in the United States on research and development and capital expenditures, with the biggest shares going to manufacturing.” ...
Colleen Hroncich Second and third graders designing affordable housing that a family now lives in? That sounds too impressive to be true, but that’s what can happen when children are in the right educational environment, like Limestone Community School in Lawrence, Kansas, which opened in 2021. Madeline Herrera founded Limestone after years of frustration as a public school teacher. “I ...
Matthew Cavedon In a December 18 amicus brief to the Supreme Court regarding Cunningham v. Baltimore County, the Cato Institute argued that a lower court was wrong to apply qualified immunity protection to a police officer because it could find no prior decision involving nearly identical facts. In this case, the police officer fired his rifle through the wall of ...