Mercatus - neighborhoodeffects.mercatus.org - Neighborhood Effects
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Occupational Licensing Hurts Consumers and Limits Entrepreneurship 20 Aug 2013 | 08:43 pm
This week I’m at U.S. News and World Reports looking at how occupational licensing hurts consumers and acts as an obstacle to new business creation. However, licensing requirements are difficult to re...
Nudges or Shoves? 15 Aug 2013 | 01:44 am
David Brooks writes in the New York Times: I’d say the anti-paternalists win the debate in theory but the libertarian paternalists win it empirically. In theory, it is possible that gentle nudges wil...
To merge or not to merge? 9 Aug 2013 | 12:42 am
Consolidating municipalities is a common policy prescription from across the political spectrum. In New Jersey in particular, many democratic and republican elected officials have thrown their support...
FDA is Finally Gluten-Free 8 Aug 2013 | 11:38 pm
Brady Dennis reported in the Washington Post that after nine excruciating years FDA finally came up with a “gluten-free” standard. It took so long for the usual reasons, as Dennis explains in his arti...
Do We Need a Strategic Cherry Reserve? 3 Aug 2013 | 01:05 am
What do national public interest and cherries have in common? If you follow national politics on a regular basis, the answer probably will not surprise you. It is federal regulation. This week, the US...
What would real reform in Virginia look like? 1 Aug 2013 | 07:13 pm
A couple of months ago, I blogged about Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and the gifts he and his family have received from businessman Jonnie Williams, Jr. The comments were eventually picked up by jo...
Will The EPA’s Environmental Justice Agenda Backfire? 30 Jul 2013 | 06:45 pm
In May, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new guidelines for incorporating “environmental justice” into its rulemaking procedures. Environmental justice is the idea that all people, r...
Should SEC Be in Charge of Foreign Policy 30 Jul 2013 | 03:28 am
Last week, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in SEC’s favor on the Conflict Minerals rule. The rule requires public companies to track their sources of coltan, cassit...
The farm bill vote gives credence to Democrats’ favorite ‘straw-man’ argument 25 Jul 2013 | 03:46 am
“Republicans favor tax cuts because they want to give money to rich people.” I’ve heard this argument, in various forms, for years. And I’ve always considered it one of the worst straw-men arguments ...
Why Regulations Fail 24 Jul 2013 | 08:34 pm
Last week, David Fahrenthold wrote a great article in the Washington Post, in which he described the sheer absurdity of a USDA regulation mandating a small town magician to develop a disaster evacuati...
