Despite the hurrahs among Republicans and Democrats alike after last summer's budget agreement, Hoover fellow Robert J. Barro sees little cause for celebration. A critique of a big deal.
Hong Kong may be back in the hands of mainland China, but direct government spending in Hong Kong remains less than 15 percent of national income--versus some 40 or 50 percent here in the United States. Hoover fellow and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman considers these facts worth pondering.
Sometime early in the next century the federal government is likely to begin taking in more money than it spends, going into surplus for the first time in decades. What to do with the billions of dollars that will begin piling up? Hoover fellow Martin Anderson has a suggestion.
A commercial pilot flies a jet while legally drunk. He's fired. And? And the courts force the airline to rehire him. Hoover fellow David R. Henderson examines the surreal world of American labor regulations.
The regents of the University of California voted in 1995 to end affirmative action on all nine UC campuses. Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell has looked at the results, and he concludes that the educational climate for minorities has gotten better, not worse.
Stephen Moore examines the proposition that immigrants impose burdens on the cities where they live, acting as an economic drag. The facts, he finds, suggest otherwise.
Attempting to develop new standards for its public schools, California has formed an Academic Standards Commission. One of its members is Hoover fellow Williamson Evers, and he's not altogether happy about the commission's work.
At the recent conference in Kyoto, Japan, representatives from dozens of nations tried to figure out what to do about global warming. Apparently, it didn't occur to them that global warming might be good. By Hoover fellow Thomas Gale Moore.
If you believe only government can save the environment, prepare to change your mind. Hoover fellow Terry L. Anderson and his coauthor, Donald R. Leal, describe an entirely new kind of environmentalist.
Global warming is too serious to be left to the politicians. Hoover fellow Edward Teller suggests a scientific solution to the problem. (If there is a problem, that is.)
Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration is pushing up the price of medicine and delaying the introduction of new drugs. Think the era of big government is over? Look in your medicine cabinet. By Hoover fellow Henry I. Miller, M.D.
When New York City police were accused of torturing a Haitian immigrant recently, the city's police commissioner claimed that the incident was an "aberration." Hoover fellow Joseph D. McNamara doubts it. An essay by the former San Jose chief of police.
Computers have made the entire economy vastly more productive--a fact that government accounting happens to have missed. By Hoover fellow David R. Henderson.
Hoover fellow and former Secretary of State George P. Shultz considers diplomacy in the age of the World Wide Web. His conclusion? Less has changed than you might think.
If Germany's first attempt at democracy, the Weimar Republic, had proved successful, the Second World War would never have taken place. Now Russia has embarked on its own first attempt at democracy. We dare not let it fail. By Hoover fellow and former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry.
The United States is about to pour money into Russian toxic weapons labs. The intention? Converting the labs to peacetime purposes. At least that's the American intention. The Russians may have other ideas. By Hoover fellow Richard Staar.
Despite looming troubles--a divided Korea and a divided China--the United States has only two military treaties in Asia, one with Japan, one with South Korea. Hoover fellows Ramon H. Myers and Robert J. Myers make the case for collective security agreements in the Pacific.
The United States wants a military alliance with Japan and a policy of engagement with China, aims that happen to be in conflict. Hoover fellow Charles Wolf Jr. tells how to pull the policy off.
With the Cold War over and done, the Atlantic alliance has given birth to a new world of peace and prosperity. Yet the Europeans suddenly think ill of us, while we hardly think of them at all. Hoover fellow Dennis L. Bark presents a portrait of postpartum blues.
How many nations possess nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons--or might soon do so? Hoover fellow and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Henry S. Rowen knows the answer. It isn't particularly reassuring.
After more than six decades as a one-party state, Russia today has in effect become . . . a one-party state. Hoover fellow Michael A. McFaul explains why the Yeltsin government lacks an opposition--and why the lack is so dangerous.
Throughout Latin America, free market reforms are in peril. Hoover fellow William Ratliff explains how reformers can nevertheless prevail--and why they must.
The currency crisis in Thailand showed how irresponsible government policy could thwart an economic boom. Hoover fellow and Nobel Prize winner Gary S. Becker argues that developing nations can avoid such economic shocks by abandoning free-floating exchange rates.
How economic growth is forcing the placid stream of traditional Asian culture to merge with the turbulent stream of modernity. By Hoover fellow Alex Inkeles.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary made quick transitions to democracy and free markets. Yet Russia itself failed to do so. Why? Hoover fellow Robert Conquest explains, drawing on eight centuries of Russian history and his own lifetime of study.
Hoover fellow Arnold Beichman examines one of the darker corners of Soviet history, describing how the Communists "annexed the written word--fiction, nonfiction, plays, essays, short stories, everything--to the party apparat."
Two years after Congress passed welfare reform, are we any nearer to seeing the end of welfare as we knew it? Hoover fellow Thomas MaCurdy recently gave Hoover fellow Peter Robinson an early assessment.
The Hoover Institution is engaged in a major effort to salvage archives from the Soviet Union. Archivist Gordon Hahn describes the effort--and discusses a trove of records that dates from the Soviet Union's final months.
![WW II recruiting poster calls for the good of the motherland](https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/styles/research_teaser/public/uploads/images/digest19981_conquest.GIF ""Your motherland is calling" declares this WW II recruiting poster. Many times, Mother Russia has implored her people to sacrifice material wealth and personal freedom for the good of the motherland, thereby weakening the foundations of economic growth. C")
