Trade

What's So Favorable About a Favorable Balance of Trade?
Hoover fellow Melvyn Krauss explains why there is nothing inherently good about running a trade surplus or inherently bad about running a trade deficit. A lovely exercise in clear thinking.

Social Security

Pyramid Scheme*
Social Security has been "a hoax since day one." By Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell.

Double Your Money Back*
Hoover fellow David R. Henderson explains how to replace Social Security with personal retirement accounts--a step he believes would create vast new wealth for all Americans.

Inflation

How the Fed Slew Inflation*
Plenty of economists doubted that it could be done, but the Federal Reserve Board managed to cut inflation from the double-digit rates of the 1970s to the modest single-digit rates of today. Hoover fellow Michael J. Boskin explains how Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan slew the dragon--and taught consensus opinion a lesson.

Tax Policy

Four Facts*
It takes just four simple facts to make the case for a flat tax. By Hoover fellow David R. Henderson.

Education

When Public Schools Compete With Public Schools*
Smarter students for less money? In public schools? Hoover fellow Robert J. Barro reports the results of a new study showing that competition doesn't hurt public schools but improves them.

Black Studies Revisited*
Some goings-on perhaps best described asodd have been discovered by outside observers in some black studies courses at San Francisco State University. A report on the classroom by Hoover fellow John H. Bunzel and his coauthor Anita Susan Grossman.

Brainwashing the Children*
Grade-schoolers used to be assigned themes such as "What I Did on My Summer Vacation." Now they get themes such as "How God Messed Up." What's happening in our public schools? Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell has a name for it: brainwashing.

Environment

Free Market Environmentalism
Hoover fellow Terry l. Anderson knows how to break the gridlock in environmental policy. (A two-word hint: "property rights.")

Health Care

For Sale By Owner*
Every month dozens of people die while waiting for organ transplants.Why? A classic case of demand outweighing supply. Nobel Prize–winner and Hoover fellow Gary S. Becker proposes a solution.

Intellectual Property

Who Owns Thought?*
What once took a scribe in a monastery a year to copy can now be copied in a nanosecond--which poses a few problems for copyright law. Hoover media fellow Tom Bethell offers an easy-to-understand primer on a not-so-easy-to-understand subject.

Crime

The Costs of Getting Tough*
In November 1994, California voters passed Proposition 184, the "three strikes" ballot initiative. The initiative required criminals to receive life sentences for third felony convictions. How has the law been working? According to Hoover fellow and former San Jose chief of police Joseph D. McNamara, not well at all.

China

What Beijing Wants*
Hoover fellow Charles Wolf Jr. explains how Beijing intends to use its growing strength--and how the United States should respond.

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Umbrella*
When Hoover fellow Arnold Beichman listens to President Clinton on China, what he hears is Neville Chamberlain. Appeasement, anyone?

It's the Economy, Stupid*
Although you wouldn't know it from reading the Western press, says Hoover fellow Ramon H. Myers, dramatic economic reforms in China are still under way--and the future of Asia depends on their success.

Where the Press Will Still Be Free*
Now that Hong Kong has reverted to the control of mainland China, Hoover media fellow Edward Neilan believes, Western correspondents will begin leaving Hong Kong to base themselves instead in Taiwan. A report from Taipei.

Hong Kong

Promises, Promises
Before taking over Hong Kong on July 1, mainland China promised to permit Hong Kong a wide degree of autonomy.Will China keep its promises? Hoover fellow Alvin Rabushka says no—and argues that it has already begun breaking them.

Japan

Ship Ahoy (Shh!)*
Hoover media fellow Edward Neilan reports on Japan's quiet naval buildup.

Korea

Paid Misbehavior*
Kim Jong Il was young and untried when in 1994 he succeeded his father as dictator of North Korea. Yet using bluffs, threats, and provocations, he has played the Clinton administration like an old pro. An assessment by Hoover fellow Thomas H. Henriksen.

East Asia

Asia in 2015*
China, Japan, India, Korea, Indonesia: In the next fifteen to twenty years, Hoover fellow Charles Wolf Jr. argues, each is destined to become a great deal richer and much more powerful. The ascent of Asia--and what it means for the United States.

The Big Cats*
After the Second World War, the nations of East Asia were all poor--in economic terms, mere mewing cats. Hoover fellow Henry S. Rowen explains just how they turned into roaring tigers.

Russia

What Kind of "Democracy" Is This?*
Russia--destitute, dazed, crime-ridden--has even now failed to achieve true democracy. An essay by Nobel Prize–winner and Hoover honorary fellow Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Aleksandr Lebed the Great*
Former General Aleksandr Lebed is convinced that the United States wants to take over Europe, that the old USSR must be put back together, and that he himself is a man of destiny, right up there with Peter the Great. Ready for the scary part? By Russian standards, he's sane. A portrait by Hoover fellow John B. Dunlop.

Russia and the Islamic States of the Mideast*
In its dealings with the Mideast, Russia has dusted off a few of the old Soviet foreign policy tools, including arms shipments and outrageous anti-American propaganda. An analysis by Hoover fellow Richard F. Staar.

United Kingdom

The Sun Finally Sets On a British Empire*
Last spring, despite a robust British economy, the Conservative Party dynasty that had ruled Britain for eighteen years found itself tossed out of office. Hoover fellow Gerald A. Dorfman explains how Mrs. Thatcher's party suffered a crushing defeat--but how Mrs. Thatcher herself still won.

Mexico

The Present Crisis*
The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement raised Mexican hopes. Now Mexico's own culture of corruption has dashed them. A report by Hoover fellow Paul Rich, who spends half of each year south of the border.

Interviews

Campaign Finance: Roll Back the Reforms*
Hoover fellow David Brady and Berkeley political scientist Nelson W. Polsby believe we need fewer limits on political contributions, not more. An interview by Hoover fellow Peter Robinson.

Geezer Boom
Hoover fellow David Wise and Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences John Shoven recently spent an hour discussing the effects of Social Security on the aging baby boom population. Their conclusions? Without radical reforms, Social Security won't work. And without Social Security, a lot of boomers will go bust. An interview by Hoover fellow Peter Robinson.

History and Culture

For The Record*
No one foresaw the fall of the Soviet Union, right? Wrong. Excerpts from some two decades of Hoover fellow Robert Conquest's own writing amount to an essay in prescience.

Nine Traits That Make Americans American*
De Tocqueville and other observers marveled at the traits that made Americans different from other peoples. Hoover fellow Alex Inkeles brings the techniques of modern sociology to bear on nine traits that still set us apart.

Bibliography

A comprehensive listing*
A comprehensive listing of recent writings of Hoover fellows and publications from the Hoover Press.