Articles

Countries with higher rates of occupational licensing tend to have lower output per person, larger informal sectors, and lower scores on multiple dimensions of governance quality.

As John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail following a congressional vote for independence on July 2, 1776, “[This date] ought to be Solemnized with Pomp and Parade with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

Once upon a time, I regarded Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and the Austrians — and also Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard, and the libertarians — with respect and admiration, but in important ways as adversaries.

A previous article attributed widespread airline service failures not to individual carriers but to government interventions sold as consumer protections. Through a web of intricate regulations and controls, the state restricts entry, grants shared monopoly privileges to approved carriers, and creates what Rothbard calls a state-enforced cartel. The result is an illusion of competition that allows poor service to persist without attracting better alternatives. This article examines how the same pattern protects incumbents and suppresses competition across other industries.

Generation Z's anger should be directed at government cronyism, not capitalism. On college campuses, in TikTok feeds, and in everyday conversations, a familiar narrative is gaining traction: capitalism is broken.

The standard argument for occupational licensing is that it keeps out low-quality providers. Existing evidence, however, does not support this claim; moreover, licensing erects barriers that can restrict labor supply and worker mobility, with potentially far-reaching implications for wages, employment opportunities, and economic efficiency.

Property rights are no less worthy of protection just because intangible property is at stake.

The job of a think tank is to generate the ideas that politicians implement in office. If politics were the movie industry, those we elect would be the stars on the big screen; think tanks help write the script.

Sandefur wishes to thank Tarren Bragdon of the Maine Heritage Policy Center for helpful research.

In its use of the baseball great’s name and image, Puerto Rico’s government is appropriating private property without compensation.