“Chile’s Success Story Is Difficult to Deny” By Ian Vásquez, courtesy of the Cato Institute Weeks after a 3.75% rise in metro fares in Santiago, Chile sparked violent protests by a small group of students that then generated more widespread disruption, mostly peaceful mass protests continue. Some observers have seized on the political […]
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How to make the European Green New Deal work
By Grégory Claeys, Simone Tagliapietra, and Georg Zachmann, courtesy of the Bruegel Institute European Commission president-designate Ursula von der Leyen has made climate change a top priority, promising to propose a European Green Deal that would make Europe climate neutral by 2050. The European Green Deal should be conceived as a reallocation […]
New Protectionism: Still Protectionism and Bad Economics
By Veronique de Rugy, courtesy of the Mercatus Center For several years now, news headlines have reflected anxieties about the effects of globalization and freeing trade: Will jobs evaporate? Does China have an “unfair” advantage? Is the middle class disappearing? These fears need to be addressed, because they have resulted […]
Drug reference pricing threatens patient health, innovation
By Erik Sass, TES Editor-in-Chief Some recent proposals to lower drug prices are not just counterproductive but dangerous, according to an international panel of expert economists convened by the Competitive Enterprise Institute at the National Press Club on Tuesday, November 5, 2019. The panelists warned that “foreign reference pricing” — a practice […]
UK politics is already transformed
“The Brexodus of MPs will change the House Commons, whatever the election result” By Dr Alan Wager, courtesy of The UK in a Changing Europe On Tuesday, Philip Hammond said that one of the Prime Minister’s objectives in calling an early general election was to change the face of the Conservative party. […]
Raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million
“Raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million” Duncan Simpson, courtesy of Taxpayers’ Alliance If the inheritance tax threshold was increased from £325,000 to £1 million, almost 25,000 fewer families would have to pay the hated death tax across this year and next. The government would still be raking in £7 billion […]
Healthy tax competition is possible and needed
“Principled Tax Competition” By Daniel Bunn and Else Aken, courtesy of IREF The structure of a country’s tax code is an important determinant of its economic performance. The Tax Foundation’s International Tax Competitiveness Index has ranked OECD countries’ tax systems for the last six years, and every year Estonia has been the number one country […]
The digital revolution is losing steam
“Dissecting the global growth and productivity slowdown” By Robert Stehrer, courtesy of WIIW Growth rates in the global economy since the financial crisis have been subdued compared to the boom phase at the beginning of this century (see Figure 1). Compared to the period 2000-06 average real GDP growth slowed from more […]
How I learned to stop worrying and love AI
“Artificial intelligence will be good for workers” By Gaël Campan and Luc Vallée, courtesy of MEI Are machines going to steal our jobs? That is the question that keeps popping up in light of the rapid progress of artificial intelligence (AI). Research shows, however, that such fears about the adverse impact of AI […]
Future EU, global trade deals will be harder than Brexiters think
“Britain has not yet faced its hard choices” By Daniel Wincott, courtesy of UK in a Changing Europe ‘Global Britain’ is the ultimate goal for many Brexiters. They see new, tailored trade deals around the world as Brexit’s great prize. Fast-growing economies, including India, China and Brazil, feature prominently. Critics counter that increasing […]