No Booze? You May Lose
Executive SummaryA number of theorists assume that drinking has harmful economic effects, but data show that drinking and earnings are positively correlated. We hypothesize that drinking leads to...
View ArticleInnovative Roadway Design
Executive SummaryDespite today’s horrible traffic congestion, it is tough gaining support for expanded road capacity. Amassing the funds for major urban expressway projects is slow under centrally...
View ArticleAn Unhealthy Policy Prescription
Mackinac Center for Public Policy Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney's plan to offer universal health coverage to everyone in his state is inspiring other governors, including Michigan's...
View ArticleIf things are so great, why do I feel so lousy? Part II
Bad news spreads quickly. It doesn't even really matter if the news is true or not. Last week I noted the NYT's flurry of economic pessimism, and, in this TCS Dailypiece (thanks to co-blogger Steve...
View ArticlePeters Nomination "Is a Home Run"
Los Angeles (September 5, 2006) — Reason Foundation's Robert Poole strongly supports the Bush administration's decision to nominate Mary Peters to succeed Norman Mineta as secretary of transportation....
View ArticleObesity ìas big a threat as global warming and bird fluî
So says Paul Zimmet, chairman of the WHO's International Congress on Obesity. More here. Flashback: US Surgeon General compares obesity to terror threat And speaking of global warming: A draft report...
View ArticleThe Middle Class is ShrinkingóHooray!
With election season looming, brace yourself for more tales of woe. Like their somber predecessors the tellers of these new tales will probably miss the bigger point: It's true that the middle class...
View ArticleCan Net Neutrality survive P2P?
Last week I posted a comment on Culver City, Calif.'s decision to block access to peer-to-peer sites on its municipal wireless network, which offers free access to all users. P2P, moreover, was...
View ArticleReason's First Roundtable on Global Warming
Global warming is a hot subject ââ?¬â?? so to speak, what with Schwarzenegger signing the bill to limit carbon dioxide emissions in California recently and Al Gore declaring in his movie -- for the...
View ArticleAbout that leak
Many in the blogosphere are howling about this article from The Australian, which I linked to yesterday. At issue is what to make of a leak from an IPCC report. From Real Climate: The principle error...
View ArticleWTC, 9/11, and urban futures
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, many people wondered if the World Trade Center would be rebuilt. We discussed this and other issues in a short policy paper discussng the future of...
View ArticleThe Non-Profit Alternative to Muni Networks
IBM and Cisco, with the participation of SeaKay, a non-profit organization, plan to provide free wireless broadband access to 1,500 square miles in Silicon Valley, which would make it the largest...
View ArticleLearning from rock stars
I doubt many people watching CBS-TV's Rock Star: Supernova are thinking about how it maps with the global economy, but it does in some striking ways as I discuss in an article for Michael Smith,...
View ArticleThe End of the Cable Paradigm
AT&T announced today that it will offer real-time feeds of 20 TV channels, including Fox News, Fox Sports, the Weather Channel and the History Channel, as part of a new video service that will be...
View ArticleVoIP Closes the Quality Gap
A new study by Minacom, a supplier of service level test automation systems for telephone companies, finds that the quality of voice over IP (VoIP) service markedly improved over the last twelve...
View ArticleCharter School Market Share
With more than one million students enrolled in charter schools nationwide, some individual communities are seeing large numbers of students enrolled in charter schools. Via a new study on charter...
View ArticleDHS Sees the Internet As Better Left Alone
No less an agency than the Department of Homeland Security, the poster child for government bureaucracy run amok, has concluded what few other Beltway insiders haveââ?¬â??that the Internet works just...
View ArticleUS Excels at Wasting Education Funding
Via Bloomberg News--In the US we spend the most on education and get the worst results... The U.S. spent about $12,000 per student, second only to Switzerland among the 30 OECD countries based on 2003...
View ArticleReport: Drinkers Earn More Money Than Non-Drinkers
Numerous studies have shown moderate alcohol use can have important health benefits and now a new report finds drinking can help your wallet too.Drinkers earn 10 to 14 percent more money at their jobs...
View ArticlePrivatizing Ohio's Government Marketing...Just Do It!
Marketing is a powerful tool used to promote a product, and in most instances proper marketing defines a products' success or failure. We've all heard the slogans, and when done effectively, consumers...
View ArticleWho Says Net Neutrality Rules Will Stop at the Telcos?
Rarely does an opponent provide so much clarity to the one's own side of the issue. In a column in last Thursday's Madison (Wisc.) Capital Times, John Nichols put his finger on how network neutrality...
View ArticleTexas continues pioneering role in tollroads
Texas is showing that it is still the nation's trailblazer when it comes to toll roads. From a press release from the Texas Department of Transportation: In just a few weeks, motorists can enjoy an...
View ArticleThe Human Cost of Ag. Subsidies
We don't often see the human toll subsidies take, but this article in the New York Times does a pretty good job. Suicide among farmers in India is at record highs, and a large portion of the despair...
View ArticleThink Tank Urges Caution on Bonds, Says Most Projects Should Be Paid for by...
Los Angeles (September 19, 2006) — The bond measures on the November ballot lack accountability, do not ensure that taxpayer dollars will actually be directed towards the most-needed projects, are an...
View Articlestokholm approves congestion charging--sort of
Stockholm, Sweden went to the polls to determine whether the metropolis would continue with its congestion charging scheme. The program, by all accounts, seemed to be successful in achieving its...
View ArticleI support Al Gore
...partially, on at least one topic. Reuters reports that Gore advocated a tax shift to replace all payroll taxes, including those for Social Security and unemployment compensation, with a tax on...
View ArticleDo economists reach a conclusion on rail transit?
Cecilia Kim and I explore this question in the latest issue of Econ Journal Watch. Here's the abstract: In the United States, the public debate over urban rail projects is complicated by the lack of...
View ArticleRemember when outsourcing was going to destroy America?
Harvard economist Greg Mankiw has a pretty tranquil life these days, at least compared to what he went through a couple of years ago. As chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors he uttered the...
View ArticleJob Opening
Position: Window Washer Job Description: This is specialized window washing work. Employees are responsible for performing window washing tasks that require the use of special height reaching equipment...
View Articleimmigration laws pummeling ag economy
Anyone still convinced the government knows what it's doing on immigration law should read this article from today's New York Times. It's a classic example of how politics and reality diverge as well...
View ArticleLA mayor fights cronyism that never officially existed
Facing criticism that city building permit officials gave special treatment to politically connected applicants, the Los Angeles Building and Safety Department announced Tuesday that it is drafting new...
View ArticleAnother victory over eminent domain abuse
From Yolo County, CA. The county has been working for 2 years to condemn the Conway Ranch, ostensibly to "preserve open space" even though the long -standing and public plans of the owners were...
View ArticleRare Woodpecker Sends Town Running for Chain Saws
Check out this fascinating article, with pictures. Folks realizing the feds are about to declare all swaths of local land as protected habitat move quickly to remove the habitat. The chain saws...
View ArticleWorking from AnywhereóInternational Space Station Edition
Anousheh Ansari is the first female Muslim in space, the first Iranian to reach Earth orbit, and perhaps the first civilian telecommuter in the ISS: she has been trying to keep on top of her office...
View ArticleProgressive Wal-MartóPrescription Drug Edition
Those gay-video-selling hippies from Bentonville are at it again. They're always forcing big companies to accept smaller profit margins and then passing on the savings on to their Average Joe...
View ArticleThe Mackinac Center Looks at Franchise Reform
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan makes the case for cable franchise reform in a new paper by Diane S. Katz published Sept. 19. Timed to coincide with hearings on Michigan House Bill...
View ArticleCalifornia's Minimum Wage Law Hurts More Than It Helps
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent signing of a bill to increase California's minimum wage is being hailed by supporters as a victory for the poor, but economic realities tell us that this will not be...
View ArticleA New Transportation Equation
Bacon's Rebellion Next week the General Assembly returns to Richmond for yet another Special Session. With the budget already put to bed, legislators will be discussing and debating how our...
View ArticleSticking it to Smokers
In November, Californians will once again decide whether or not to raise their cigarette excise tax. However, Proposition 86 takes the debate over tobacco taxes to a new extreme, proposing an...
View ArticleRetiree health care may overwhelm gov'ts
The bill is coming due for years of generous benefits bestowed upon the nation's public employees, and it's a stunner: hundreds of billions of dollars over the next three decades, threatening some...
View ArticleMore Municipal Wi-Fi Pie in the Sky
San Francisco taxpayers might end up being the biggest losers after all now that Bay Area muni-loonies have succeeding in getting the city to second-guess its planned deal with Google and Earthlink....
View ArticleThe Citywide Wireless Network That Never Was
San Francisco Examiner Google has provided all of Mountain View with free Wi-Fi. MetroFi has blanketed much of the South Bay with free wireless Internet access. Oakland is tiptoeing into plans for a...
View ArticleCable Grows Up
ESPN drew the second largest cable audience ever with its Monday night telecast of the football game between the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints, second only to the 1993 CNN debate on NAFTA...
View ArticleBad day for Rev. Pfleger
For years his rallies and platitudes helped keep Wal-Mart outside Chicago, but now the biggest box has opened its first store inside city limits. And even though Rev. Pfleger has said that Wal-Mart...
View ArticleWhores and Suckholes
Years ago, right-wing funnyman P.J. O'Rourke wrote a very clever book about American politics. The title said it all: Parliament of Whores. Now a left-wing Aussie has published a book that examines...
View ArticleCongress Makes a Federal Case Out of HP
Just when you thought silly season had ended on Capitol Hill, Congress has taken up the case of the Hewlett-Packard board shenanigans. To satisfy the sense of self-importance, The House Energy and...
View ArticlePeek inside SpaceShipTwo
Thanks to Brad Hutchings for passing this along: Future passengers aboard Virgin Galactic spaceliners can look forward to cushioned reclining seats and lots of windows during suborbital flights aboard...
View ArticleIs urban sprawl an urban myth?
As cities spread into surrounding territories, roadways clog, pollution increases, social inequities expand, and the costs of municipal services like sewers and the police rise. Or do they? University...
View ArticleIs enviro-consciousness macho?
Many folks are amused at the evolution of the meaning of the famous "Don't mess with Texas" slogan. It first emerged in 1986 as an anti-litter campaign, but today you'll find those words on the back...
View ArticleDoes immigration increase wages for low-skilled workers?
Does it decrease inequality? Yes and yes, say authors of a new study: The working paper titled "The Globalization of Household Production," challenges many existing theories about the economic impacts...
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