If you are a football fan, you’ll know this frustration. Your team faces third and one. Instead of handing off, the quarterback throws a pass that falls incomplete and the punt team comes on. You scream, “Just run the ball and get the first down!” Game theory suggests that your anger may be misplaced. Often […]

Troy University will host an exhibition from The Remnant Trust from September through the end of November. The artifacts and books included afford an opportunity for Alabamians to see some history. Founded in 1999, The Remnant Trust is a foundation dedicated to preserving items important to the history of individual freedom and human dignity. Partnered […]

Labor Day was established as a national holiday 125 years ago, championed by labor unions. Despite unions’ recent decline, we should still celebrate work. The market for labor is an important element of the liberal society, and peoples’ willingness to work for a living makes our economy function. The decline of unions in America has […]

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to curb climate change will require enormous sacrifice. The enormity of the required sacrifice suggests that we should have consensus on the goal before acting. Recent discussions of the Green New Deal have highlighted some of the required sacrifices, but I suspect that the full implications of an all-renewable power electric […]

More than three million students will begin college this year, many pursuing degrees needed for high paying jobs. Amazingly, bachelor’s degrees open economic doors despite little evidence of significant learning in college. How can students who retain so little knowledge make so much money? A college degree can identify people who employers want to hire. […]

The Edmund Burke Foundation recently hosted the National Conservatism Conference which explored, among other questions, the meaning and importance of patriotic national unity. Conference organizer Yoram Hazony argued that conservatives need to break away from the libertarian and classical liberal idea of the “individual … as the only thing that matters in politics.” Politics is […]

Whether the U.S. Women’s Soccer team should be paid the same as (or more than) the U.S. Men’s team is one part of gender pay equity. The debate highlights how determinants of pay in markets do not align with our notions of fairness and equity. In the labor market, supply and demand set wages and […]

The U.S. Women’s soccer team is fighting two battles this year. On the field in France, they successfully defended their World Cup title. In March, team members sued the U.S. Soccer Federation for gender discrimination. The case highlights gender pay equity and potential discrimination by sports fans. Determining compensation is trickier than you might think, […]

Zoning and land use regulation has largely choked off housing construction in many American cities. This is an unintended but predictable consequence of requiring government permission for building. Understanding why requires starting with the why of zoning. Some land uses interfere with the use and enjoyment of nearby property. These nuisances include noise, smells, vibrations, […]

The state legislature gave Alabama’s public school teachers a 4 percent raise this year. Relaxing zoning and land use laws in America’s most productive cities could give us all a similar raise. Zoning illustrates the costs of a permission-based economy. How do land use regulations in New York or San Francisco affect America? Businesses with […]

Millions of Americans fear answering their phone due to a plague of billions of robocalls. These calls have made a mockery of the national Do Not Call Registry and touch on several public policy questions. We had seemingly ended the problem of unwanted telemarketing calls. Congress authorized the Do Not Call Registry in 2003 after […]

Alabama and other states have recently passed new laws restricting or criminalizing abortion to challenge the Supreme Court’s 1973 landmark decision in Roe v. Wade in the wake of Justice Kavanaugh’s appointment. America’s founders saw a role for federalism in managing disagreements. But recent abortion, same-sex marriage and transgender bathroom controversies raise doubts whether federalism […]

The Alabama legislature lowered the minimum age for a truck driver’s (CDL) license to 18 for within-state transport (the minimum age remains 21 in interstate trucking) to help alleviate a driver shortage the American Trucking Associations (ATA) says has existed since 2005. Trucking has long been a major employer in Alabama and Pike County. What […]

Trillions of pieces of plastic are creating huge garbage patches in the world’s oceans. One company’s efforts to do something about this problem can lead us to rethink some perceived economic wisdom. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that two million tons of plastic enters the world’s oceans each year. Most of this waste […]

Several Democratic presidential candidates are proposing raising the top income tax rate to 70 percent. Proponents want tax hikes to stem worsening inequality and adequately fund the Federal government. Opponents contend that such high tax rates will significantly reduce economic growth. Economists are famous for disagreeing, but we agree that if we tax anything, we […]

Economic freedom is the freedom to engage in commerce and use our property as we see fit. Over the past 25 years, economists have developed measures of the economic freedom of nations and states. A new measure of the economic freedom of metropolitan areas (MSAs) allows us to answer which Alabama city has the most […]

President Trump is creating a Presidential Committee on Climate Security to scrutinize climate science. Princeton University physicist William Happer has been identified as a possible committee chair. Environmental groups consider Mr. Trump’s proposal heretical and label skeptics as climate change deniers. Nonetheless, I think that climate science, the environment, and our democracy will all benefit […]

The current measles outbreak has brought new criticism of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children over vaccine safety concerns. Measles was declared to be eradicated in the U.S. in 2000, and yet this year alone, 550 cases have occurred through the second week of April. Anti-vaccination attitudes, I think, reflect a decline in trust […]

Those of us old enough to remember the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union probably thought we had seen the last of socialism. The idea of government planning of an economy, once billed as “scientific socialism,” seemed consigned to the dustbin of history. Times certainly have changed. Self-described socialist […]

The Alabama legislature kicked off its new term with a special session to increase the gas tax, a result which seemed foreordained. Nonetheless, the gas tax raises interesting economic and political considerations. Our gas tax is currently just under 21 cents a gallon, which ranks 41st nationally according to the Tax Foundation, or 36th if […]

I frequently extol the virtues of economic freedom, which generally produces prosperity and rising standards of living. However, could economic freedom possibly be contributing to America’s opioid crisis and its tragic deaths?

Amazon announced last year that it would build part of its new second headquarters facility, dubbed HQ2, in Queens, New York. In February, Amazon abandoned these plans. The episode offers insights on government-business relations in America today. The saga began in September 2017 when Amazon requested proposals from cities to host HQ2 and its expected […]

Last October, Hurricane Michael slammed the Florida panhandle with 155 mile per hour (mph) winds. Mexico Beach was largely destroyed, except for one exceptional, and now much reported on, house called the Sand Palace. Does it offer a guide for building for the future? Strengthening buildings to reduce damage from natural disasters is called mitigation, […]

President Trump is reportedly considering former Godfather’s Pizza CEO and one-time presidential candidate Herman Cain for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Mr. Cain’s potential selection caused a stir for at least three reasons: accusations of sexual harassment which surfaced during his presidential run, a lack of training as an economist, and his advocating a […]