As a classical liberal, there are few questions that call for a litmus test answer. Free trade is one of them. The principle of comparative advantage applies across national borders just as it applies within states. Any objection to free trade on the grounds that it hurts competitive industries, such as maple syrup producers in […]
The central challenge of economic regulation is to ask which forms help the overall performance of complex societies, and which retard their growth. As a matter of first principle, the correct answer approach runs as follows. Those forms of regulation that strengthen the system of private property rights and reduce the costs of contractual enforcement should […]
It is now just about eighteen months before the November 2016 Presidential election. The conventional wisdom says that it is risky to make predictions about the fickle state of politics when there is so much time for political blunders or national crises to reshape the electorate’s choice of the next president. In principle, I accept […]
Right now it looks as though the purported rescue of Greece by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund will fall to bits on the socialist shoals of Syriza. Since the last showdown with the EU, Greece has continued to operate as if there were no fiscal tomorrow. Its two latest manoeuvres are straight […]
Now that the United States 2014 midterm elections are safely in the rear view mirror, the political classes in Washington and elsewhere are busily handicapping the potential presidential nominees for both parties. The common wisdom is that the Democratic nomination is Hillary Clinton’s for the asking, and that the Republican contest is wide-open and subject […]
Yesterday, the United States Congress passed comprehensive legislation on the Keystone XL Pipeline. That ambitious project is designed to carry over 800,000 barrels along a 1,117 route from Canada to Texas through five other America states. Keystone has been mired in regulatory review in the United States since 2008. The proposed Congressional legislation does two things. First, […]
The recent world of political economy features the deep paradox. By common consent Thomas Piketty’s recent volume Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been hailed of the intellectual triumph of the year. Its bold recommendations make the theoretical case for a global income tax in the range of 54 to 80—a figure that has also […]
The current situation in the Italian labour market—if it can be called that—is a textbook illustration of all that can go wrong when bad economic ideas obtain a secure institutional home, from which it is impossible to dislodge them. On that cheery note, I have no magic bullet that can dislodge labour’s political dominance backed […]
Most of the discussion about the Scottish referendum on independence, , scheduled for September 18, 2014, has focused on the fact that as of late the pro-union forces have maintained a narrow lead, most recently at about 47 to 41 percent. What has gone less remarked as to why any reference to the 50 percent […]
It is now five weeks since I participated in the Conference organised by the Centre for Policy Studies, dedicated to the memory of Margaret Thatcher. I still remained impressed by the seriousness of purpose that dominated the occasion. The speeches were devoted to explicating the first principles of political organisation, and they frequently made explicit […]
