Usually in every microeconomics course I teach, there comes a time when I make the point that there is a fundamental difference between taxicab regulation in Washington, D.C. and taxicab regulation in virtually every other American city. In the latter, local governments restrict the number of taxicabs, creating rents for those who have the permits.
The resounding rejection of President Obama and his administration’s policies seems like the obvious interpretation of the midterm election. And polling indicates that ObamaCare ranked near the top of the issues serving as the object of that widespread repudiation.
Over the weekend, Alaska GOP Gov. Sean Parnell conceded defeat to challenger Bill Walker on what was, in part, a hat-tip to the concept of good government (as Alaska will sear in its new governor on Dec. 1, this gives Walker a sporting chance at a fluid transition).
President Obama has stated that he wants “to begin engaging Congress” over a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against the Islamic State and also that he wants to “right-size and update” the 2001 AUMF “to suit the current fight, rather than previous fights.”
MILAN – Chinese President Xi Jinping’s massive anti-corruption campaign has advanced a number of key objectives: It has gone a long way toward restoring confidence in the Communist Party’s commitment to a merit-based system; countered a decades-old pattern of public-sector domination; reduced the power of vested interests to block reform; and bolstered Xi’s popularity among private-sector actors, if far less so with the bureaucracy.
Traditional principal preparation programs are notoriously non-selective. The new breed of program takes selectivity to the opposite extreme. Some have ratios of acceptances to inquiries or applications that rival competitive colleges—below 10 percent.
Contrary to Vladimir Putin’s assurances that “Ukraine is not our business,” Russia has suffered 15,000-20,000 dead and wounded on the Ukrainian field of battle, in addition to declining living standards, economic isolation and the expensive subsidization of occupied Ukrainian territories.
The recent tensions between China and Japan are threatening to bring the world’s top three economies—the United States, China, and Japan—into a major armed confrontation.
On Monday, November 17, the Stanford speaker series The Security Conundrum will continue with three-time Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Barton Gellman.
Nobel Laureate Vernon L. Smith of Chapman University talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about how Adam Smith's book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments has enriched his understanding of human behavior. He contrasts Adam Smith's vision in Sentiments with the traditional neoclassical models of choice and applies Smith's insights to explain unexpected experimental results from the laboratory.
BRISBANE, Australia — After years of populist rhetoric against banks and Wall Street, repeated calls for raising the minimum wage and withering campaign-trail criticism of corporate America for shipping jobs overseas and dodging taxes, President Barack Obama could leave office with a foreign policy legacy whose most concrete achievement is a huge free trade deal with Pacific Rim countries.
Twenty years ago, a 341-pound football player smashed into Roman Reed during a Chabot College game in Hayward, breaking the 19-year-old’s neck and changing his life inalterably.
