Using a comparison of Jamaica and Singapore, I recently argued that growth should trump inequality. Simply stated, a growing economic pie is much better for poor people that incentive-sapping redistribution programs that trap people in dependency. In other words, nations with smaller government and less intervention produce better results than nations with bloated governments and lots of meddling. You see […]

With Crimea potentially breaking away from Ukraine and the ongoing risk of conflict, it’s time to revisit the topic. I explained a few weeks ago that decentralization was one way of defusing the crisis. Now Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute has a refreshing and important analysisexplaining how bad economic policy has hindered Ukraine’s development. He explains […]

Ukraine is in the news and that’s not a good thing. I’m not a foreign policy expert, to be sure, but it can’t be a positive sign when nations with nuclear weapons start squabbling with each other. And that’s what’s happening now that Russia is supposedly occupying Crimea and perhaps other parts of Ukraine and […]

I’m on the Crimean Peninsula for a meeting of the European Resource Bank. It’s my first trip to Ukraine, and the conference is being held at a hotel on the Black Sea, so I can’t complain about the scenery. But the news from the various European think tanks is generally not favorable. Marcin Nowacki of […]