Economic Policy

T he Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) is probably one of the least known victims of federal downsizing, but the effect of its elimination at the end of September 1996 was significant. Without the ACIR, local, state, and federal officials have less contact with each other, and there is a shortage of data about […]

N ewt Gingrich thinks Americans need a new frontier to explore. He also believes in paying bounties to promote public objectives. Hence the proposal prepared at his invitation by space entrepreneur Robert Zubrin for a federal bounty of $20 billion payable to the first private organization that puts someone on Mars and brings that man […]

Even before the swooning of the Dow, the current economic expansion was less robust than it appeared. Is this a new economy? Or just people working harder to stay in place?

I t has been amusing to watch the natural rate of unemployment come down. Two years ago, the community of respectable economists held-though with exceptions including Robert Eisner of Northwestern, Ray Fair at Yale, Harvard’s James Medoff, and myself-that 6 percent unemployment was as low as the economy could go without triggering inflation. This meant, […]

The claim that the freest market produces the best economic and social outcome is the centerpiece of the conservative political resurgence. But without government intervention, the market can destroy a lot of things–including itself.