by Dan Mitchell | Mar 13, 2021 | Blogs, Economics
Two years ago, I shared a study from three scholars that investigated whether membership in the European Union (EU) is associated with better economic performance. Before reading that study, I assumed that EU membership was bad news for rich countries with...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 8, 2021 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
I periodically write about the importance of long-run growth and about the importance of convergence (whether poorer countries are catching up with richer countries, as suggested by theory). This is because such data, especially over decades,...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 22, 2021 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
There are many compelling economic arguments against entitlement programs. They discourage savings.They discourage work.They are funded with taxes.They are funded with debt. Since I’m a libertarian, I also have moral concerns about...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 12, 2021 | Blogs, Economics
As illustrated by my recent three-part series (here, here, and here), I care about helping the poor rather then hurting the rich. More broadly, I want a bigger economic pie so that everyone can have a larger slice. And I don’t particularly care if some people get...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 29, 2020 | Blogs, Economics
My view of the U.S. economic policy often depends on whether I’m writing about absolute levels of laissez-faire or relative levels of laissez-faire. If my column is about the former, I generally complain about excessive spending, punitive taxation, senseless red...