I very rarely feel sorry for statists. After all, these are the people who think that their feelings of envy and inadequacy justify bigger and more coercive government. And I get especially irked when I think about how their authoritarian policies will hurt the most vulnerablein society. But I nonetheless feel sorry for statists when I […]

I’m currently in Asia, where I just finished a series of speeches about economic policy in China and Hong Kong. These two jurisdictions offer very powerful lessons about the importance of economic policy. Hong Kong is supposed to be Nirvana for libertarians. It holds the top spot in the Economic Freedom of the World rankings. It has […]

In prior posts, I’ve shared some remarkable numbers on the cost of regulation. Americans spend 8.8 billion hours every year filling out government forms. The economy-wide cost of regulation is now $1.75 trillion. For every bureaucrat at a regulatory agency, 100 jobs are destroyed in the economy’s productive sector. But the long-run damage may be even worse than […]

After reading below about Argentina’s decline, several people have emailed to ask how Chile compares. Ask and ye shall receive. This post from last month shows shows Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela. Very powerful, which is why I gave the post such a grandiose title. ============================== There’s been a lot of coverage of the recent decision […]

Johnny Munkhammar is a member of the Swedish Parliament and a committed supporter of economic liberalization. He has a column in the Wall Street Journal Europe that does a great job of explaining how Sweden became rich when it was a small-government, pro-market nation. He then notes that his country veered off track in the […]

I prefer the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World over the Heritage/WSJ Index of Economic Freedom, not because I’m an expert on the methodology of the two publications, but for the simple reason that I assume Economic Freedom of the World must be slightly more accurate because, unlike the Heritage Index,  it showed the […]

A paper posted on the Social Science Research Network looks at nations that are prospering compared to those that are stagnating. Not surprisingly, limited government and free enterprise policies are associated with better economic performance. Here’s an excerpt from this new research. What can we conclude about the effect of various policies on economic growth? […]

Atleast 24 nations have adopted some form of single-rate tax regime. These reforms have generated impressive results, including faster growth, more jobs, and increased competitiveness. While politicians generally are most concerned about losing tax revenue, they should not worry. Flat tax systems oftentimes generate higher tax revenues because of more income and better compliance.