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Channel: Public Choice – The Volokh Conspiracy
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Concluding Thoughts on the Cato Unbound Symposium on Democracy and Political...

The Cato Unbound symposium on my book Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter is wrapping up up today. I am grateful to political theorist Jeffrey Friedman, Yale Law School...

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My Response to Jeffrey Friedman’s Critique of Democracy and Political Ignorance

Cato Unbound has now posted my response to political theorist Jeffrey Friedman’s insightful criticism of my book Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter. Here is an...

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Baptists, Bootleggers, and Marijuana Prohibition

Public choice economist Bruce Yandle famously developed the concept of a “baptist-bootlegger coalition” to describe situations in which regulation is supported by a strange bedfellow alliance of groups...

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Sports Stadium Corporate Welfare Continues in Detroit

Despite the having filed for bankruptcy, Detroit is going ahead with plans to spend over $400 million in public funds on a new hockey arena for the Detroit Red Wings [HT: Josh Blackman]: Detroit’s...

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Penalties for Underperforming Politicians

Law professor Glenn Reynolds (AKA Instapundit) has an interesting column in USA Today advocating that we increase penalties for politicians who do a poor job in office: As scandals explode across...

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James Buchanan, RIP

Nobel Prize-winning economist James Buchanan passed away today. Buchanan was one of the founders of public choice economics, which seeks to apply economic analysis to politics. Closely related was his...

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Corporate Tax Breaks in Fiscal Cliff Deal

“Congress, apparently, couldn’t end the year without showering billions on a handful of interest groups, some of which you probably didn’t even know existed,” the Washington Post editorializes. the...

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The Other Beneficiaries of ObamaCare

Whether or not you believe the PPACA has been or will be good for the American people, it has certainly been good for the lobbyists and legislative staffers who wrote it, as Tim Carney explains. Glenn...

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Massachusetts Highway Safety Director With Terrible Driving Record Resigns

Sheila Burgess, the Massachusetts Highway Safety Division Director with a horrible driving record and no qualifications for the job, has resigned. I blogged about Burgess here. The resignation was...

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Director of Massachusetts Highway Safety Division Has Extensive Record of Car...

It sounds like something from a bad libertarian parody of government. But it turns out that the Director of the Massachusetts state highway safety agency has a long record of traffic accidents and...

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When Is an Earmark not an Earmark?

When it’s pushed by the Republican leadership, is located in a politically important state, and is carefully written to avoid the official definition of an “earmark.” (HT: Instapundit) [...] The post...

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A Too Big to Fail Parking Lot at Yankee Stadium?

Manhattan Institute scholar Nicole Gelinas has an interesting column about a massive financially dubious parking lot at Yankee Stadium, which Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. claims requires a...

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More Evidence of the Repressive Nature of the New Egyptian Government

In a recent post, I cited evidence suggesting that the new Egyptian government is degenerating into a military dictatorship at least as bad as the Mubarak regime that was overthrown earlier this year....

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Egypt Sliding into Military Dictatorship

When the revolution that eventually overthrew Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak began, I warned that the end result could easily be a government as bad or worse than Mubarak’s was. In a revolutionary...

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The Debt Deal and Divided Government

The debt deal passed today does not go as far in cutting spending as I would like. But it does nonetheless enact substantial cuts without any tax increases, with a significant likelihood of more cuts...

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Should We Celebrate or Mourn the Ides of March?

Today is the Ides of March, the anniversary of Julius Caesar’s assassination. Economist David Henderson asks a question that people have been debating for over 2000 years: Should Caesar have been...

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Reflections on the Potential Revolution in Egypt

I don’t have any brilliant suggestions for how President Obama should handle the situation in Egypt. But history and economic theory do give us some insight on why the revolt against the government...

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E.J. McMahon Argues for Alternatives to State Bankruptcy, and Fred Siegel on...

The Manhattan Institute’s EJ McMahon argues for alternatives to state bankruptcy in the Wall Street Journal today.  The article is not framed as an argument for the sustainability of the state debt...

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Bankruptcy for States

Bankruptcy law professor David Skeel, whose new book The New Financial Deal is one I admire a great deal, has a new op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today urging a bankruptcy regime for the states....

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What Would Public Choice Theory Say About Rating Agencies and Sovereign Debt?

Particularly since the European sovereign debt crisis put the question of sovereign debt ratings squarely on the table, and even more in the last few days since the rating agencies have downgraded...

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