Economic Lessons from Scandinavia

by Dan Mitchell | Jan 17, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Europe, Welfare and Entitlements

In my younger years, I oftentimes would have arguments with statists who wanted me to believe that countries in Northern Europe like Sweden “proved” that generous welfare states were compatible with economic prosperity. That doesn’t happen as often today because the...

Linear Thinking and the Rahn Curve: Responding to a Critic

by Dan Mitchell | Jun 9, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Laffer Curve

There’s an old saying that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. That may be true if you’re in Hollywood and visibility is a key to long-run earnings. But in the world of public policy, you don’t want to be a punching bag. And that describes my role in a book...

Another Example of Editorial-Page Fiction at the New York Times

by Dan Mitchell | May 14, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Europe, Government Spending, Keynesian

Are there any fact checkers at the New York Times? Since they’ve allowed some glaring mistakes by Paul Krugman (see here and here), I guess the answer is no. But some mistakes are worse than others. Consider a recent column by David Stuckler of Oxford and Sanjay Basu...

A Picture of How Redistribution Programs Trap the Less Fortunate in Lives of Dependency

by Dan Mitchell | Jul 14, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements

I wrote last year about the way in which welfare programs lead to very high implicit marginal tax rates on low-income people. More specifically, they lose handouts when they earn income. As such, it is not very advantageous for them to climb the economic ladder...