All Blogs / Academics / Political Science / Popular
Putting Mali Back Together Again: An Age-Structural Perspective
Once considered a model for Sahelian democracy, Mali’s liberal regime (assessed as “free” in Freedom House’s annual survey of democratic governance continuously from 2000 to 2011) virtually disintegrated in March 2012 when a group of junior army officers, frustrated by the central government’s half-hearted response to a rebellion in the state’s vast northern tier, found [...]
What Rights? ‘New York Times’ Discussion of Egypt’s Population Policy Incomplete
The New York Times had a front-page story on Egypt’s population policy last week; unfortunately it wasn’t a sterling example of how to report on this tricky issue and left out a key part of the story – the important role of family planning in ensuring human rights, especially for women. “Egypt’s Birthrate Rises as [...]
Top 10 Posts for April 2013
We’re happy to have a new project director on-board here at ECSP, and apparently so are you. Roger-Mark De Souza’s welcome post was one of the most popular of last month, despite going up three-quarters of the way through. Wilson Center Scholar Jill Shankleman’s treatise on East Africa’s oil and gas returned to the top [...]
Great Moments in Government: The IRS Apologizes for Bias while Simultaneously Denying Bias
Daniel J. Mitchell I’m happy to bash the IRS, but I usually try to explain that our anger should be focused on the politicians who created the corrupt, 74,000-page tax code. But sometimes the IRS deserves some negative attention. The...Show More Summary
IRS Chief, Who Defended Illegal 'ObamaCare' Taxes, also Denied Targeting of Tea-Party Groups
Michael F. Cannon In 2011, members of Congress began criticizing a proposed IRS rule implementing ObamaCare’s health insurance tax credits. They claimed that the proposed rule violated the clear language of the Patient Protection and...Show More Summary
More on the bending of the health care cost curve
If Slow Rate Of Health Care Spending Growth Persists, Projections May Be Off By $770 Billion David Cutler & Nikhil Sahni Health Affairs, May 2013, Pages 841-850 Abstract: Despite earlier forecasts to the contrary, US health care spending growth has slowed in the past four years, continuing a trend that began in the early 2000s. [...]
David Pogue praises Feedly
Here is part of his analysis: The one everybody keeps saying is the natural heir to Google Reader, though, is Feedly.com. In fact, Feedly says the ranks of its four million users have swelled to seven million since Google’s Reader death sentence was announced. It requires a free plug-in for the Firefox, Chrome and Safari [...]
Help Poor People in Bangladesh by Buying the Clothes They Make
K. William Watson The tragic building collapse in Bangladesh two weeks ago, killing over 900 people, has focused public attention on working conditions for garment workers around the world. The attention has intensified calls for Western...Show More Summary
Targeting the Tea Party Isn't the IRS's Most Egregious Abuse of Power
Michael F. Cannon Not by a longshot. As Jonathan Adler and I explain in this law journal article, and as I explain somewhat more accessibly in this Cato paper, the IRS is trying to tax, borrow, and spend $800 billion in clear violation of federal law and congressional intent. Yes, you read that right: $800 billion.
The Misery Index: A Look Back at Bulgaria's Elections
Steve H. Hanke With Bulgaria’s May 12 th election fast approaching, it is useful to reflect on past elections and the resulting economic performance of each elected government. To do this, I have developed a Misery Index inspired by the late Prof. Show More Summary
Shades of Nixon: 'IRS Apologizes for Targeting Conservative Groups'
Michael F. Cannon From the Associated Press: WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service is apologizing for inappropriately flagging conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were...Show More Summary
Benghazi? Let's Talk ObamaCare!
Michael F. Cannon Things must be going poorly for President Obama if he wants to change the subject to ObamaCare. Today, most of Washington is questioning whether the U.S. government was derelict in its handling of the September 11, 2012 assault on the U.S. Show More Summary
Barro and de Rugy on Defense Spending and the Economy
Christopher A. Preble Earlier this week, Harvard economist Robert Barro and Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center published a short paper assessing the economic effects of defense spending. Their findings are consistent with those of other studies, including one that Cato published last year by Benjamin Zycher. Show More Summary
Assorted links
1. No great stagnation in potato cannons. 2. Bureaucrats around the world, a photo essay. 3. Can countries die? 4. Not all variables have been held constant. 5. Might European REPO markets come under threat?
Deserving Poor
I like a great deal of Bryan Caplan’s work, and what I like I like a great deal, but it seems to me he makes a significant inferential error in this recent EconLog post. Caplan notes that “1% of poor families with children are headed by single parents. About 80% of all long-term poverty occurs […]
Sodomy and Usury
Aristotle thought that usury and sodomy were related because in both cases there was attempted reproduction in an unnatural way. (Yeah, I don’t get it either. The argument would have been better as an argument against cloning. No matter, the argument was influential). In a very good piece, Jeet Heer notes the connection the ancients perceived between [...]
The Public Choice Outreach Conference 2013!
Students are invited to apply to the Public Choice Outreach Conference. The Conference is an intensive lecture series on public choice and constitutional economics that has “graduated” some of the leading lights in economics and political science over the past thirty years. The conference will be held at George Mason University from Friday August 16 to [...]
Is the Fed able to offset “austerity”?
David Beckworth serves up another very good blog post and directs us to this graph of nominal gdp; it seems aggregate demand has been recovering steadily: Scott Sumner directs us to Marcus Nunes, but here is a quotation from Scott: In 1937 real government purchases recoiled 4.2% and the economy tanked. In 2012 real government [...]
The Pentagon as a Jobs Program, Cont...
Tad DeHaven Last week I discussed the tendency for policymakers to treat the Pentagon like a giant jobs program. It was prompted by an article from the Associated Press on members of Congress shoving unwanted upgraded Abrams tanks down taxpayers’ throats because retooling tanks sustains jobs back in the district. Show More Summary
This Mother's Day, Give Moms School Choice
Jason Bedrick A new study this week finds that school mothers overwhelmingly support school choice. According to the Friedman Foundation’s survey, 69 percent of American mothers of school-aged children supported scholarship tax credit (STC) programs while only 19 percent opposed them. Show More Summary
