http://www.cato.org/ amast@cato.org (Andrew Mast) The Cato Institute seeks to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace. Toward that goal, the Institute strives to achieve greater involvement of the intelligent, concerned lay public in questions of policy and the proper role of government. en-us http://www.cato.org/images/logo_small.jpg http://www.cato.org/ The Cato Institute 125 68 Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/vILmUDYlKZk/pub_display.php <p>While Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and private subprime lenders have deservedly garnered the bulk of attention and blame for the mortgage crisis, other federal programs also distort our mortgage market and put taxpayers at risk of having to finance massive financial bailouts.</p> <p>The most prominent of these risky agencies is the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The FHA currently backs an activity portfolio of over $1 trillion. With an economic value of only $2.6 billion, representing a capital ratio of 0.24 percent, relatively small changes in the performance of the FHA's portfolio could result in significant losses to the taxpayer. As the taxpayer is, by law, obligated for any losses above the FHA's current capital reserves, these are not losses that can be avoided. Reasonably foreseeable changes to the FHA's performance could easily cost the taxpayer tens of billions of dollars, surpassing the ultimate cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bank bailouts.</p> <p>To protect the taxpayer and the broader economy, the FHA should be scaled back immediately, and an emphasis should be placed on improving its credit quality. At the same time, the agency should be placed on a path to ultimately be eliminated, with its risk-taking being transferred back to the private sector.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp123.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/mark-calabria">Mark Calabria</a> is the director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute. He served on the staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs and drafted significant portions of the FHA Modernization Act of 2008. He also served as deputy assistant secretary for regulatory affairs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he oversaw FHA's minimum property standards program.</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=vILmUDYlKZk:ni0_sh79EjA:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=vILmUDYlKZk:ni0_sh79EjA:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=vILmUDYlKZk:ni0_sh79EjA:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=vILmUDYlKZk:ni0_sh79EjA:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=vILmUDYlKZk:ni0_sh79EjA:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=vILmUDYlKZk:ni0_sh79EjA:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=vILmUDYlKZk:ni0_sh79EjA:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=vILmUDYlKZk:ni0_sh79EjA:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=vILmUDYlKZk:ni0_sh79EjA:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=vILmUDYlKZk:ni0_sh79EjA:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/vILmUDYlKZk" height="1" width="1"/> Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=14069Mark A. Calabria http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=14069 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/f_WkIEIqDJk/pub_display.php <p>The ostensible purpose of gun control legislation is to reduce firearm deaths and injuries. The restriction of access to firearms will make criminals unable to use guns to shoot people. Gun control laws will also reduce the number of accidental shootings. Those are the desired effects, at least in theory. It is important, however, for conscientious policymakers to consider not only the stated goals of gun control regulations, but the actual results that they produce.</p> <p>What would be the effect of depriving ordinary, law-abiding citizens from keeping arms for self-defense? One result seems certain: the law-abiding would be at a distinct disadvantage should criminals acquire guns from underground markets. After all, it is simply not possible for police officers to get to every scene where they are urgently needed.</p> <p>Outside of criminology circles, relatively few people can reasonably estimate how often people use guns to fend off criminal attacks. If policymakers are truly interested in harm reduction, they should pause to consider how many crimes &#8212; murders, rapes, assaults, robberies &#8212; are thwarted each year by ordinary persons with guns. The estimates of defensive gun use range between the tens of thousands to as high as two million each year.</p> <p>This paper uses a collection of news reports of self-defense with guns over an eight-year period to survey the circumstances and outcomes of defensive gun uses in America.</p> <p>Federal and state lawmakers often oppose repealing or amending laws governing the ownership or carrying of guns. That opposition is typically based on assumptions that the average citizen is incapable of successfully employing a gun in self-defense or that possession of a gun in public will tempt people to violence in "road rage" or other contentious situations. Those assumptions are false. The vast majority of gun owners are ethical and competent. That means tens of thousands of crimes are prevented each year by ordinary citizens with guns.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.cato.org/guns-and-self-defense" style="font-weight: bold;">Defensive Gun Use: An Interactive Map</a><br><br><a href="http://www.cato.org/store/reports/tough-targets-when-criminals-face-armed-resistance-citizens"><img src="http://www.cato.org/images/bookstore/toughtargets-wp-cover.jpg" border=0><br>Purchase a Copy from the Cato Bookstore</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/WP-Tough-Targets.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em>Clayton E. Cramer teaches history at the College of Western Idaho and is the author of </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Armed-America-Remarkable-Became-American/dp/1595552847/?tag=catoinstitute-20" target="_blank">Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie</a><em> (Nelson Current, 2007). David Burnett is the director of public relations for Students for Concealed Carry.</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=f_WkIEIqDJk:oCY4hTEOsl4:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=f_WkIEIqDJk:oCY4hTEOsl4:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=f_WkIEIqDJk:oCY4hTEOsl4:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=f_WkIEIqDJk:oCY4hTEOsl4:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=f_WkIEIqDJk:oCY4hTEOsl4:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=f_WkIEIqDJk:oCY4hTEOsl4:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=f_WkIEIqDJk:oCY4hTEOsl4:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=f_WkIEIqDJk:oCY4hTEOsl4:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=f_WkIEIqDJk:oCY4hTEOsl4:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=f_WkIEIqDJk:oCY4hTEOsl4:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/f_WkIEIqDJk" height="1" width="1"/> Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=14031Clayton E. Cramer, David Burnett http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=14031 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/oJCsJA7PztY/pub_display.php <p>The constitutional amendment procedure of Article V is defective because the national convention amendment method does not work. Because no amendment can be enacted without Congress's approval, limitations on the federal government that Congress opposes are virtually impossible to pass. This defect may have prevented the enactment of several constitutional amendments that would have constrained Congress, such as amendments establishing a balanced budget limitation, a line-item veto, or congressional term limits. The increasingly nationalist character of our constitutional charter may not be the result of modern values or circumstances, but an artifact of a distorted amendment procedure. Article V should be reformed to allow two-thirds of the state legislatures to propose a constitutional amendment which would then be ratified or rejected by the states, acting through state conventions or state ballot measures. Such a return of power to the states would militate against our overly centralized government by helping to restore the federalist character of our Constitution. Moreover, a strategy exists that would allow this reform to be enacted.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA691.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em>Michael B. Rappaport is professor of law at the University of San Diego, where he also serves as the director of the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism.</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oJCsJA7PztY:57zx9yj1nio:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oJCsJA7PztY:57zx9yj1nio:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=oJCsJA7PztY:57zx9yj1nio:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oJCsJA7PztY:57zx9yj1nio:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oJCsJA7PztY:57zx9yj1nio:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=oJCsJA7PztY:57zx9yj1nio:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oJCsJA7PztY:57zx9yj1nio:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oJCsJA7PztY:57zx9yj1nio:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oJCsJA7PztY:57zx9yj1nio:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=oJCsJA7PztY:57zx9yj1nio:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/oJCsJA7PztY" height="1" width="1"/> Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13992Michael B. Rappaport http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13992 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/taT3MTkLBZI/pub_display.php <p>More than 40 years ago, Sen. William Proxmire (D-WI) guided the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) through Congress, seeking to improve the operations of the credit reporting industry. The complexities and tensions in a reputation system like credit reporting are formidable, however, and the FCRA has not satisfied consumer group demands for accurate, responsive, fair, and confidential credit reporting. In fact, new problems have emerged, such as credit repair fraud and identity fraud.</p> <p>Credit reporting today is anything but the confidential service Proxmire hoped for. Passed in tandem with a financial surveillance law called the Bank Secrecy Act, the FCRA has been turned toward government and corporate surveillance, providing little or no privacy or control for consumers.</p> <p>As economic theory predicts, the credit reporting industry appears to have benefited from the ossifying effects of regulation. Though the information and technology environments have changed dramatically over the last four decades, the credit reporting and reputation marketplace has seen little change or innovation. A potential related market for identity services is also stagnant thanks in part to government policies.</p> <p>When Congress chose to preempt common law remedies for wrongs done by credit bureaus, it withdrew a tool that could have guided credit reporting toward better service to consumers and a more innovative and vibrant marketplace. With uniform national regulations, we cannot know how credit reporting might have evolved for the better.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA690.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper">Jim Harper</a> is director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute and author of the book </em><a href="http://www.cato.org/store/books/identity-crisis-how-identification-overused-misunderstood-hardback">Identity Crisis: How Identification Is Overused and Misunderstood</a><em>.</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=taT3MTkLBZI:N588df0YGK0:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=taT3MTkLBZI:N588df0YGK0:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=taT3MTkLBZI:N588df0YGK0:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=taT3MTkLBZI:N588df0YGK0:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=taT3MTkLBZI:N588df0YGK0:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=taT3MTkLBZI:N588df0YGK0:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=taT3MTkLBZI:N588df0YGK0:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=taT3MTkLBZI:N588df0YGK0:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=taT3MTkLBZI:N588df0YGK0:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=taT3MTkLBZI:N588df0YGK0:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/taT3MTkLBZI" height="1" width="1"/> Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13888Jim Harper http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13888 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/6b5UZBk8T0o/pub_display.php <p>Russia is poised to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), solidifying its transition from a closed communist economy to a full participant in the global marketplace. The only question is whether the United States will embrace Russia as a fellow WTO member or forfeit the benefits for the sake of an outdated policy rooted in the Cold War.</p> <p>Russia's petition to join the WTO dates back to 1993. Since that time it has negotiated accession agreements with all major WTO members, including the United States, committing to open its economy further and to accept WTO rules on nondiscrimination, dispute settlement, intellectual property, and a range of other trade-related issues. WTO members are expected to approve Russia's admission at the organization's ministerial meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, December 15&#8211;17. To enjoy the enhanced access to Russia's market, the U.S. government will need to grant permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to the Russian Federation. Under the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment, Congress is required annually to pass a special exemption for Russia extending it conditional access to the U.S. market. The law was originally intended to withhold normal-trade-relations status from communist countries that did not allow Jewish citizens to freely emigrate. Even after the fall the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the law continued to apply to most former communist countries because of their continued status as "nonmarket economies."</p> <p>As a condition of membership in the WTO, all members are expected to grant unconditional most-favored nation (MFN) status to all other members. This means each WTO member must offer the same level of market access to other members without attaching special conditions to that access. Continued application of Jackson-Vanik to Russia would be a violation of unconditional MFN status, since it depends on Congress granting renewal each year.</p> <p>If Congress does not grant PNTR to Russia by repealing Jackson-Vanik, then the enhanced market-access commitments Russia has made in its accession protocol would not apply to exports from the United States. Producers in the other 150-plus members would enjoy those benefits but not producers in the United States.</p> <p>The stakes are high. Russia is a major yet still underdeveloped market for a range of American exports, from poultry to aircraft. If U.S. exporters are not granted the more favorable access under Russia's accession protocol, they will face discriminatory tariffs that will put them at a disadvantage against competitors in other major trading nations. That market share, once lost, would be difficult to regain. Granting PNTR to Russia thus becomes important to promoting U.S. trade as a sustainable boost to the sputtering U.S. economy.</p> <p><strong>Expanding U.S.-Russian Commercial Relations</strong><br>Russia has emerged as a major commercial partner of the United States, although the relationship remains underdeveloped relative to the size of Russia's economy and the considerable economic liberalization following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Through the first three quarters of 2011, Russia ranked 31st among nations as a market for U.S. goods exports, and 16th as a source of U.S. goods imports. In two-way trade (exports plus imports), Russia ranks as America's 23rd largest trading partner, just below Thailand and Nigeria,¹ even though it is the world's 11th largest economy in exchange-rate terms.² Russia remains by far the largest economy and the only member of the G-20 group of major economies still outside the World Trade Organization. Of the 50 largest economies in exchange-rate terms, the oil-exporting Islamic Republic of Iran is the only other one that is not a member.</p> <p>Trade with Russia has, however, grown significantly over the past decade. From 2000 to 2010, U.S. goods exports to Russia increased by 187 percent and U.S. imports from Russia increased by 235 percent.³ During the same period, total U.S. exports and imports grew 63 percent and 57 percent respectively. The growth in import value from Russia can be attributed at least partially to an increase in the world prices of natural resources such as oil and natural gas, which account for a large share of U.S. imports from Russia. Over this same time period, world prices for crude oil have increased by 183 percent.⁴</p> <p>U.S. trade with Russia is highly concentrated in a few select industries. In 2010 the top five import categories (according to the 2-digit Harmonized System) made up over 70 percent of total U.S. imports from Russia.⁵ These categories included precious stones and metals, inorganic chemicals, mineral fuels, aluminum, iron and steel, and fish and other seafood. Examining the industry concentration of imports using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) produces an even greater level of concentration: just three NAICS 3-digit categories (petroleum and coal products, oil and gas, and primary metal manufacturing) made up 86 percent of imports from Russia in 2010.⁶ U.S. exports to Russia are also highly concentrated: aircraft, machinery, and meat (according to the 2-digit Harmonized System) make up about 60 percent of U.S. exports to Russia. A calculation using comparable NAICS categories yields a figure closer to 54 percent.⁷</p> <p><strong>PNTR Key to Expanding U.S. Exports</strong><br>American producers will be in a better position to expand their exports to Russia if the United States can participate fully in Russia's membership in the WTO. And that can happen only if Congress grants Russia permanent normal trade relations.</p> <p>Russia's accession to the WTO would almost certainly result in increased U.S. exports, thereby contributing to President Obama's National Export Initiative goal to double exports from 2009 to 2014. Following a dip during the "Great Recession" of 2008&#8211;09, U.S. exports to Russia have rebounded strongly. The increasing economic liberalization and development of Russia in recent years has coincided with increased U.S. exports, with the growth rate of U.S. exports to Russia twice as large as the growth rate of U.S. exports to the rest of the world. By some estimates, U.S. exports to Russia could double in the five years following its accession to the WTO.⁸</p> <p>Demand within the Russian market for U.S. goods and services is significant and increasing. Moreover, that demand spans across multiple economic sectors, including agriculture, services, capital equipment, manufactures, machinery, and advanced technologies. In 2010, for example, 66 million Russians were Internet users. This number is expected to jump by 20 percent in 2011, stoking demand for U.S.-branded computer software and hardware.⁹ As a condition of its WTO entry, Russia has committed to joining the Information Technology Agreement, which eliminates duties on a wide range of IT, communication, and other high-tech hardware. Also, Russia is the 8th largest market for U.S. exports of PVC and other polymers, and exports of these goods grew 500 percent between 2008 and 2010.</p> <p>Furthermore, Russia will require an estimated 960 new civilian aircraft in the next 20 years to replace its aging fleet, and a proposed reduction from 20 percent to 7.5 percent in tariffs on wide body aircraft would benefit U.S. producers significantly.¹⁰ Growing demand for Russia's vast natural resources &#8212; including farming, mining, oil, and energy products &#8212; drives Russian demand for heavy and complex machinery, which the United States is in an optimal position to export. Russia has committed to a bound tariff (upon entering the WTO) of 5 percent in this sector.¹¹</p> <p>Meat is another area in which Russia's accession would greatly benefit the United States. Despite a temporary decline in exports to Russia due to a chemical-based ban on U.S. poultry, Russia remained one of the top 10 markets for U.S. poultry exports in 2010.¹² As a member of the WTO, Russia would have to adhere to international standards in regulating its meat imports, ensuring greater predictability for U.S. exports. This is also true for pork products, and U.S. pork exports increased tenfold in the five years preceding the economic crisis. Exports of U.S. beef to Russia also have risen, jumping to $102 million in 2010. Russia's agreement to bind its tariff and comply with WTO standards in agriculture will both increase the standards of meat within Russia and help to ensure and expand the market for U.S. goods.¹³</p> <p>Russia has also committed to liberalization measures in its financial sector. This has opened up Russia as a potential recipient of considerable foreign direct investment. The U.S. financial sector is poised to gain from Russian accession commitments to allow 100 percent foreign ownership of banks and financial institutions, to liberalize financial services across borders, and to allow internal securities trading by foreign firms.¹⁴ Similarly, such U.S. sectors as telecommunications, professional services providers, and distribution operators would benefit from Russian liberalization of foreign investment and ownership, and several high-tech industries would benefit from Russia's adherence to the WTO's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs) agreement.¹⁵</p> <p>It is important politically (if not economically) to note that Russia exports mainly natural resources, energy products, and high-value goods, which typically face low to zero tariffs already. Those who misguidedly argue that increased U.S. trade with countries such as China, Mexico, and smaller, less-developed countries has had a detrimental impact on certain more labor-intensive U.S. industries need not worry that liberalized trade with Russia will produce similar results. Moreover, Russia seeks to import U.S. technologies, capital equipment, and advanced machinery. In sum, U.S.-Russia trade is significantly less competitive than it is collaborative and complementary.</p> <p>Finally, Russia's entry into the WTO would benefit the United States indirectly by spurring economic growth in Russia and institutionalizing economic reforms. AlthoughRussia remains a mixed economy with widespread government intervention, it has been liberalizing its trade regime. The average level of import tariffs in Russia has dropped from 14 percent to 8 percent, according to World Bank economist David Tarr. Membership in the WTO would help to lock in those gains. The World Bank also predicts WTO membership would increase the size of the Russian economy by as much as 11 percent in the long run, further boosting demand for U.S. exports.¹⁶</p> <p><strong>Lingering Objections to Normalizing Trade with Russia</strong><br>Balanced against those advantages, certain members of Congress have raised a number of potential objections to granting permanent normal trade relations to Russia. The biggest issues raised are remaining trade barriers that the Russian government maintains against certain goods of export interest to the United States, lack of adequate protection of intellectual property, the misuse of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) regulations as trade barriers against agricultural goods, and ongoing political restrictions in Russia. While each of those concerns is real, none of them justify withholding permanent normal trade relations.</p> <p><em>Abuse of Food Safety Regulations</em><br>A key issue for agricultural exporters will be Russia's commitment on sanitary and phytosanitary standards, which concern the application of food safety and animal and plant health regulations. Among the major remaining issue is that of equivalence, which is a WTO SPS requirement committing members to accept exporting members' differing SPS standards and procedures so long as they are demonstrably and objectively sufficient to satisfy the importing member's SPS protections. Russia allegedly neither explains its SPS measures nor utilizes specific and consistent scientific procedures in its evaluations. Examples of allegedly inconsistent and WTO-illegal requirements include antiquated and prescriptive rules for slaughter plant hygiene, a zero tolerance for antibiotics in meat, opposition to chlorinated washes for poultry, and nonscientific standards for food-borne pathogen control.</p> <p>Also relevant to SPS, a regional customs union of which Russia is a member requires Russia to ensure that any SPS customs union regulations (which are still being developed) with Belarus and Kazakhstan are consistent with WTO rules. Russia thus must coordinate SPS issues with not only major WTO partners such as the United States and the European Union, but also customs union partners and several domestic agencies.</p> <p>One of the most contentious issues in U.S.-Russia trade relations is the treatment of imported poultry from the United States. Due to rising per capita Russian incomes that have resulted in increased demand for meat, Russia is one of the largest export markets in the world for American poultry producers. On January 1, 2010, Russia implemented new regulations on imported poultry, which made it more difficult for U.S. exports to meet Russian requirements for sanitary preparation.</p> <p>Ensuring that SPS measures do not become disguised trade barriers is one of the most valuable contributions of WTO membership. The U.S. government is right to press this issue with the Russian government, but it should not become a barrier to passing PNTR. The United States will be in a better position to challenge Russia once it is a WTO member by using, or threatening to use, the organization's dispute settlement mechanism. By joining the WTO, Russia will have committed to following the organization's detailed SPS rules, which the United States can then seek to enforce through established procedures rather than brinksmanship.</p> <p><em>Automobile Sector and Other Protection</em><br>Another politically sensitive issue is Russia's significant remaining trade and investment barriers on automobiles. Russia recently updated its automobile investment policy in a way that contradicts the WTO's existing rules on trade-related investment measures (TRIMs). The Russian program allegedly "doubles the local content rules that foreign companies need to observe in order to benefit from tariff cuts for imported parts."¹⁷ The program requires, for example, foreign manufacturers to "use up to 60 percent of local content in their Russia-made vehicles, register a certain amount of intellectual property in Russia and build entire components such as engines within Russia in order to receive tariff reductions on the parts and components they import into Russia."¹⁸</p> <p>In addition, the program also requires that foreign auto companies located in Russia invest in Russian-based research and development. According to Russian media, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin has stated publicly that Russia will not repeal the auto investment program. In fact, Russia's auto policy was amended in December 2010 (Decree 166) to increase local content requirements &#8212; a clear sign of movement counter to liberalization.</p> <p>Negotiations with Russia over tariff-rate quotas for beef, pork, and poultry have made little progress and met resistance. The United States and other potential exporters (especially the European Union) have pushed Russia for concessions, while Russia has failed to specify TRQ levels to which it is willing to commit. U.S. farmers stand to gain significantly from improved market access for agriculture if issues such as the TRQs can be addressed. Again, the U.S. exporters will stand a better chance of prevailing in such disputes if Russia is a member of the WTO and the United States is a full participant in its membership.</p> <p><em>Lack of Adequate Intellectual-Property Protection</em><br>Intellectual property rights (IPR) are also frequently cited as an issue in U.S.-Russia trade. In 2010 the U.S. International Trade Commission listed Russia on its "priority watch list" of nations who are failing to meet their obligations to enforce intellectual property rights. According to the annual USITC report on IPR enforcement:</p> <blockquote>While Russia has made some progress over the past several years in improving IPR protection and enforcement, concerns remain, particularly with respect to Russia's continued failure to implement fully its commitments in the November 2006 Bilateral Agreement on Protection and Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights.¹⁹</blockquote> <p>Particular areas of concern for the USITC were optical disc and internet piracy, "unfair commercial use of undisclosed test or other data generated to obtain marketing approval for pharmaceutical products," and music and movie counterfeiting.</p> <p>Russian accession to the WTO requires a commitment from the Russian government to protect and enforce intellectual property rights. Reportedly, the United States is "satisfied with the intellectual property section of Russia's working party report, which includes legislative and enforcement obligations."²⁰</p> <p>United States satisfaction stems largely from recent changes made by Russia to its IPR laws. However, the extent to which Russia will enforce its new protections remains uncertain. Many high-technology U.S. firms and industries remain skeptical, and a Russian social networking website remains one of the world's most popular sources for illegal music downloads. Some reports suggest that additional Russian legislation ensuring that internet service providers will be held liable for IPR infringement may be a prerequisite for WTO accession or U.S. granting of MFN status.</p> <p>Like the concerns over the abuse of SPS regulations, intellectual property protection in Russia is a legitimate concern. But like SPS, it is no reason to oppose granting of permanent normal trade relations. As a fellow WTO member with Russia, the U.S. government will be able to insist on compliance with the full weight of the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism.</p> <p><em>Human Rights Concerns</em><br>Beyond those commercial concerns, members of Congress may be reluctant to grant PNTR to Russia unless the legislation can be used as a bargaining chip to pressure Russia on human rights.</p> <p>House Foreign Affairs chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen stated on July 7, 2011, that PNTR for Russia is "simply not an option" absent human rights reform, a sentiment shared by other members of Congress.²¹ Some kind of compromise on human rights might become a necessary trade-off in order to obtain congressional support for MFN and repeal of Jackson-Vanik. One option would be a bill mandating asset freezes and/or travel bans for certain Russian individuals, particularly those involved in the murder of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who had recently unearthed tax fraud by the Russian government and then died while in custody.</p> <p>Although such narrowly crafted bills may provide the kind of compromise that is needed, conditioning PNTR on an overall improvement in Russia's human rights record would be a mistake. Trade policy has proven to be an ineffective tool for imposing fundamental political changes in other countries. The World Trade Organization was not set up to enforce human rights but more narrowly to promote trade liberalization among its members. Promoting respect for human rights around the world is a worthy cause, but threatening to withdraw trade access for an entire nation is not a proper human-rights tool.</p> <p>Just as WTO member governments pursue a wide range of trade policies, they also represent a wide range of political regimes. Of the organization's 153 members, more than 20 are at least as or more repressive of human rights than Russia, as measured by the annual survey of Freedom House. The list of WTO members that, like Russia, are classified by Freedom House as "Not Free" includes Bahrain, Cambodia, Chad, China, Cuba, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, United Arab Emirates, and Zimbabwe.²² It would be inconsistent with the spirit of the WTO, as well as established U.S. policy, to oppose Russia's membership in the organization because of its restrictions on political and civil freedoms.</p> <p><strong>The Mechanics of Jackson-Vanik</strong><br>Once those objections are overcome, the last remaining obstacle will be the permanent graduation of Russia from the Jackson-Vanik amendment. This amendment is yet another example of a law that remains on the books long after its original justification has ceased to apply. The law originated in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, which spanned four decades from the late 1940s to the fall of the Berlin Wall.</p> <p>The United States suspended, in 1951, MFN status to all communist countries (with the exception of Yugoslavia) under Section V of the Trade Agreements Extension Act (later superseded by Title IV of the Trade Act of 1974).²³</p> <p>Domestic U.S. law, in the form of Title IV of the Trade Act of 1974 (as amended), in fact mandates that MFN status be withheld from certain countries &#8212; that is, nonmarket and communist countries unable or unwilling to satisfy Section 402 of the Trade Act of 1974. Also known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment, Section 402 requires foreign adherence to certain freedom of emigration requirements in order to qualify for MFN. Section 402 stipulates that "to assure the continued dedication of the United States to fundamental human rights ... products from any non-market economy country shall not be eligible to receive nondiscriminatory treatment (normal trade relations)."</p> <p>Specifically, Section 402 states that the United States cannot conclude a commercial agreement with any such country so long as that country</p> <blockquote>1. Denies its citizens the right or opportunity to emigrate;<br>2. Imposes more than a nominal tax on emigration or on the visas or other documents required for emigration, for any purpose or cause whatsoever; or<br>3. Imposes more than a nominal tax, levy, fine, fee, or other charge on any citizen as a consequence of the desire of such citizen to emigrate to the country of his choice.</blockquote> <p>Although Jackson-Vanik has not expired, the majority of countries originally susceptible to the amendment have shifted toward economic liberalism and joined (or applied to join) the WTO. Former or remaining communist countries that have joined the WTO (by date of accession) include Slovakia (1/1/95), Romania (1/1/95), Czech Republic (1/1/95), Hungary (1/1/95), Bulgaria (12/1/96), Mongolia (1/29/97), Kyrgyzstan (12/20/98), Latvia (2/10/99), Estonia (11/13/99), Georgia (6/14/00), Albania (9/8/00), Lithuania (5/31/01), Moldova (7/26/01), China (12/11/01), Armenia (2/5/03), Cambodia (10/13/04), Vietnam (1/11/07), and Ukraine (5/16/08). Other former communist countries that have applied for WTO membership and are in accession negotiations include Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.</p> <p>Under WTO rules, MFN must be applied "unconditionally." However, WTO Article XIII permits the nonapplication of multilateral trade agreements (e.g., MFN) among particular members under predetermined conditions. Specifically, Article XIII states that nonapplication "may be invoked between original Members of the WTO which were contracting parties to GATT 1947 only where Article XXXV of that agreement had been invoked earlier and was effective as between those contracting parties at the time of entry into force for them of this Agreement." In addition, Article XIII states that WTO agreements "shall not apply as between any Member and any other Member if neither of the Members, at the time either becomes a Member, does not consent to such application." Application of Article XIII essentially amounts to an official and legal declaration that any and all WTO privileges, obligations, and mechanisms are nonexistent and inapplicable between the newly acceding WTO member and the member invoking Article XIII. The United States remains the only country to have evoked Article XIII.</p> <p>When a WTO member thus "determines that it cannot, for political or other reasons, accede to this or any other GATT/WTO principle toward a newly acceding member, it can 'opt-out' of its obligations toward that member by invoking the non-application provision."²⁴ In this way, a current WTO member such as the United States can legally refrain from granting unconditional MFN to a newly acceding member such as Russia. The catch is that the member opting out of such an obligation is not entitled to benefit from the increased trade liberalization that the new member has agreed to in its accession protocol. So if Congress refuses to pass PNTR, Russia will become a member of the WTO regardless, but U.S. producers will be denied the same full access to the Russian market that will be available to other WTO members.</p> <p><strong>From Cold War to Normal Trade Relations</strong><br>For the past several years, the United States has granted Russia conditional normal trade relations status, which has provided the United States with limited trade benefits inferior to those that would be fully available after Russian accession to the WTO. Legally, the conditional normal trade relations may be extended only if the U.S. president decides that the country in question is in compliance with the emigration rights requirements of Jackson-Vanik. Semiannual compliance reviews occur, and U.S.-Russia trade continues to be artificially and legally restrained.</p> <p>As explained above, WTO accession does not necessarily require that the United States grant Russia MFN/PNTR. Rather, the United States may invoke the WTO's nonapplication provision and, by so doing, refrain from a WTO-protected bilateral and reciprocal trade relationship with Russia. However, in order for the United States to fully benefit from Russian accession to the WTO, the United States must grant Russia permanent normal trade relations and most favored nation status, a step that will require approval by Congress.</p> <p>When policymakers weigh the ineffectiveness of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment against all the advantages of ushering Russia into the WTO, denying permanent normal trade relations simply should not be an option. The best policy toward Russia at this stage in our relationship is to repeal any and all Jackson-Vanik Amendment restrictions against Russia immediately and prior to Russia's accession to the WTO. Procedurally, Congress should terminate application of the amendment, thereby enabling President Obama to grant MFN status to Russia, which he should do. When and if Russia accedes to the WTO, the United States should grant Russia permanent normal trade relations and not invoke the WTO's nonapplication principle.</p> <p>Pursuing such a policy would yield immediate and tangible benefits for the American economy without sacrificing any vital foreign policy goals.</p> <p>By any measure, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment has failed in its purpose to promote emigration rights. It was not the amendment that secured those rights for the citizens of the former Soviet Union but rather the system's own collapse in 1989&#8211;91 under internal and external pressures. While the desire for improved human rights abroad is laudable, economic sanctions have proven to be an ineffective means by which to promote these human rights goals. Mandating that trade liberalization cannot occur absent emigration freedom is misguided. A more effective strategy for improving human rights, in fact, is to increase trade liberalization, thereby enhancing opportunities for people with limited human rights to enrich themselves and interact more frequently with people with greater human rights.</p> <p>By granting Russia conditional most favored nation status annually beginning in 1994, the United States has implicitly acknowledged that Russia is in full compliance with the Jackson-Vanik Amendment's emigration requirements. Rather than continuing this hollow exercise with no discernable purpose, the United States should formally and officially revoke Jackson-Vanik restrictions as they pertain to Russia.</p> <p>Contrary to popular belief, Jackson-Vanik itself does not prevent Russia from becoming a full member of the WTO. Rather, failure by the United States to revoke Jackson-Vanik restrictions and grant MFN/PNTR (in the light of Russian WTO accession) would mean that the United States must invoke the WTO's nonapplication provision and, by so doing, refrain from a WTO-protected bilateral and reciprocal trade relationship with Russia.</p> <p>The United States would benefit more from having Russia in, rather than out of, the transparent, multilateral, and rules-based trade system. Application of WTO Article XIII (the nonapplication provision) essentially amounts to an official and legal declaration that any and all WTO privileges, obligations, and mechanisms are nonexistent and inapplicable between the two concerned WTO members. Currently, the Russian economy operates largely outside of the formal, rules-based international system to which the vast majority of countries belong. In doing so, Russia denies American and other foreign firms potential benefits and protections available via WTO-monitored U.S.-Russia trade. Russian accession to the WTO (and U.S. granting of PNTR) thus would impose on Russia new levels of transparency and legal obligations relative to U.S.-Russia trade.</p> <p>Finally, granting Russia MFN trade status prior to WTO accession may function as a source of goodwill, motivating Russia to liberalize more quickly, deeply, and transparently. While no results can be guaranteed, granting Russia permanent normal trade relations would expand the freedom of American companies to reach new customers while further encouraging Russia's uncertain progress toward a more open, modern, and globally integrated economy.</p> <p align="center"><hr width="95%"></p> <p><strong>Notes</strong><br> ^1. U.S. International Trade Commission, "U.S. Trade Balance, by Partner Country 2010." Rankings based on total trade turnover (Imports plus Exports), http://dataweb.usitc.gov/scripts/cy_m3_run.asp.<br> ^2. International Monetary Fund, "World Economic and Financial Surveys, World Economic Outlook Database," September 2011, http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2011/02/weodata/index.aspx.<br> ^3. U.S. Census Bureau, "U.S. Trade in Goods by Country," www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/index.html#R.<br> ^4. U.S. Energy Information Administration, "Petroleum and Other Liquids," http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&#x26;s=WTOTWORLD&#x26;f=W.<br> ^5. William H. Cooper, "Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) Status for Russia and U.S.-Russian Economic Ties," Congressional Research Service Report, March 7, 2011, http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc33091/m1/1/high_res_d/RS21123_2011Mar07.pdf.<br> ^6. U.S. Census Bureau, "U.S. International Trade Statistics," http://censtats.census.gov/naic3_6/naics3_6.shtml.<br> ^7. NAICS Categories = 311 (Food and Kindred Products), 333 (Machinery, except Electrical), and 336 (Transportation Equipment).<br> ^8. Gary Clyde Hufbauer, "The Impact of Russia PNTR and WTO Accession on the United States," presentation to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington, April 15, 2011, http://www.piie.com/publications/pb/pb11-20.pdf.<br> ^9. U.S. International Trade Commission Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb, "Total U.S. Exports to Russia (HTS-8471), 2006&#8211;2010, by FAS Value," http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.<br> ^10. U.S. International Trade Commission Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb, "Total U.S. Exports to Russia (HTS-8407 + HTS-8408 + HTS-8409 + HTS-8412), 2000&#8211;2010, by FAS Value," http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.<br> ^11. David G. Tarr, "WTO Accession: Achievements, Impacts and Challenges," Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/28/4/40747249.pdf.<br> ^12. U.S. International Trade Commission Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb, "Total U.S. Exports to Russia and to All Countries, (HTS-0203) 2000-2010 YTD, by FAS Value and by Quantity," http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.<br> ^13. Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, "United States, Russia Reach Agreement to Resume Poultry Exports to Russia," news release, June 24, 2010, http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/speeches/transcripts/2010/june/united-states-russia-reach-agreement-resume-pou.<br> ^14. Jesper Jensen, Thomas Rutherford, and David Tarr, "The Impact of Liberalising Barriers to Foreign Direct Investment in Services: The Case of Russian Accession to the World Trade Organization," <em>Review of Development Economics</em> 11, no. 3 (August 2007): 482&#8211;506.<br> ^15. Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, "Russian Federation: Bilateral Agreements in the Context of WTO Accession," www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements/wto-multilateral-affairs/wto-accessions/russian-federation.<br> ^16. Catherine Belton and Isabel Gorst, "Hopes Rise of Russian Agreement to Join WTO," <em>Financial Times</em>, November 4, 2011.<br> ^17. "Russia Accession Talks Fall Short of Goal, Conclusion This Year in Doubt," <em>Inside U.S. Trade</em>, July 29, 2011.<br> ^18. "Russia WTO Accession Talks Unlikely to Meet July Goals on SPS, TRIMS," <em>Inside U.S. Trade</em>, July 7, 2011.<br> ^19. Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, "2010 Special 301 Report," April 30, 2010, http://www.ustr.gov/webfm_send/1906.<br> ^20. "USTR: SPS, Other Issues Pose Challenge to Russia Accession This Year," <em>Inside U.S. Trade</em>, June 24, 2011.<br> ^21. "Congress Needs Human Rights Assurances to Support Russia MFN Vote," <em>Inside U.S. Trade</em>, February 15, 2011.<br> ^22. Freedom House, "Freedom in the World: The Authoritarian Challenge to Democracy," http://www.freedomhouse.org/images/File/fiw/FIW_2011_Booklet.pdf.; and World Trade Organization, "Members and Observers," www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/org6_e.htm.<br> ^23. William H. Cooper, "The Jackson-Vanik Amendment and Candidate Countries for WTO Accession: Issues for Congress," Congressional Research Service, January 5, 2011, http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc31492/m1/1/high_res_d/RS22398_2011Jan05.pdf.<br> ^24. Ibid.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/ftb/FTB-046.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/daniel-griswold">Daniel Griswold</a> is director of the Herbert A. Steifel Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. Douglas Petersen is a former research assistant at the center.</em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=6b5UZBk8T0o:HYFGZtU2ZbQ:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=6b5UZBk8T0o:HYFGZtU2ZbQ:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=6b5UZBk8T0o:HYFGZtU2ZbQ:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=6b5UZBk8T0o:HYFGZtU2ZbQ:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=6b5UZBk8T0o:HYFGZtU2ZbQ:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=6b5UZBk8T0o:HYFGZtU2ZbQ:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=6b5UZBk8T0o:HYFGZtU2ZbQ:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=6b5UZBk8T0o:HYFGZtU2ZbQ:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=6b5UZBk8T0o:HYFGZtU2ZbQ:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=6b5UZBk8T0o:HYFGZtU2ZbQ:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/6b5UZBk8T0o" height="1" width="1"/> Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13909Daniel Griswold, Douglas Petersen http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13909 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/kpyrp3xWN5c/pub_display.php <p>Recently there has been much debate over whether Social Security is or is not a Ponzi scheme.</p> <p>Clearly Social Security has many structural characteristics that resemble those of the classic Ponzi or pyramid scheme. For example, like a Ponzi scheme, Social Security does not actually save or invest any of a participant's payments. When a worker pays taxes into the system, that money is used to pay current beneficiaries. Therefore, participants receive payments, not from returns on their own investments, but directly from inflows from subsequent participants.</p> <p>As a result, Social Security was able to pay early participants a windfall return on their money. But as demographic changes result in fewer workers paying into the program and more recipients taking benefits out, the return to subsequent generations grows steadily worse. Today's young workers will receive a rate of return far lower than what they could receive from private markets.</p> <p>However, there is one crucial distinction between Social Security and a Ponzi scheme. Once Ponzi was unable to talk enough people into investing with him, his scheme collapsed. People participate in Social Security because the government makes them. And if the Social Security system begins to run short of people paying into the system, as it is now, it can always force those people to pay more.</p> <p>Yet, Congress's ability to preserve Social Security through higher taxes and lower benefits should not distract from the more fundamental problem that the program's Ponzi-like structure makes it unable to pay currently promised levels of benefits with current levels of taxation. In short, the program is facing insolvency without fundamental reform.</p> <p>Instead of just making a bad deal worse, that reform should fundamentally restructure Social Security. It should remove the Ponzi-like aspects of the program and allow younger workers to save a portion of their payroll taxes through privately invested personal accounts.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA689.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/michael-tanner">Michael Tanner</a> is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and director of the Cato Project on Social Security Choice, and editor of </em><a href="http://www.cato.org/store/books/social-security-its-discontents-hardback">Social Security and Its Discontents: Perspectives on Choice</a><em> (Washington: Cato Institute, 2004).</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kpyrp3xWN5c:YouNBqcFC4M:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kpyrp3xWN5c:YouNBqcFC4M:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=kpyrp3xWN5c:YouNBqcFC4M:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kpyrp3xWN5c:YouNBqcFC4M:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kpyrp3xWN5c:YouNBqcFC4M:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=kpyrp3xWN5c:YouNBqcFC4M:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kpyrp3xWN5c:YouNBqcFC4M:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kpyrp3xWN5c:YouNBqcFC4M:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kpyrp3xWN5c:YouNBqcFC4M:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=kpyrp3xWN5c:YouNBqcFC4M:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/kpyrp3xWN5c" height="1" width="1"/> Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13864Michael D. Tanner http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13864 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/RqMUKvTh0eo/pub_display.php <p>An October <em>New York Times</em> story remarked that "with just five weeks until its deadline, a secretive Congressional committee seeking ways to cut the federal deficit is far from a consensus, and party leaders may need to step in if they want to ensure agreement, say people involved in the panel's work." We have this "supercommittee" of twelve members of Congress, ostensibly for the purpose of cutting a minimum $1.2 trillion from our deficit, chosen by four appointers, none agreeing with any other on exactly what ought to be done, representing mostly diametrically opposing wings of two parties with irreconcilable differences.</p> <p>Furthermore, if there's no recommendation before Thanksgiving Day, there's to be a 5-percent across-the-board cut in non-entitlement government expenditures (which includes defense cuts estimated at $600 billion). On the surface this supercommittee would seem to be highly unlikely to produce anything useful, a statement so self-evident that the introduction of theory would appear superfluous &#8212; unless theory suggests there may somehow be hope of a successful outcome. Is it possible that the supercommittee will make recommendations &#8212; which will then be passed into law &#8212; and achieve the desired result? Let us see. We might mention here in passing that past study, going back at least fifty years to <em>Parkinson's Law</em>, tells us twelve is too many for a working committee and that committees with an even number of members and no casting vote are a dubious proposition at best (Charles I tried it, by the way, with his cabinet and got his head cut off).</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/researchnotes/WorkingPaper-7.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em>Jared Lobdell, Ph.D. (Carnegie Mellon), is a former Secretary, SIG on Political Systems Analysis, SGSR (IIASA), and an Adjunct Lecturer in Global Studies at Harrisburg Area Community College.</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=RqMUKvTh0eo:c3tN8Z_PVHo:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=RqMUKvTh0eo:c3tN8Z_PVHo:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=RqMUKvTh0eo:c3tN8Z_PVHo:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=RqMUKvTh0eo:c3tN8Z_PVHo:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=RqMUKvTh0eo:c3tN8Z_PVHo:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=RqMUKvTh0eo:c3tN8Z_PVHo:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=RqMUKvTh0eo:c3tN8Z_PVHo:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=RqMUKvTh0eo:c3tN8Z_PVHo:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=RqMUKvTh0eo:c3tN8Z_PVHo:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=RqMUKvTh0eo:c3tN8Z_PVHo:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/RqMUKvTh0eo" height="1" width="1"/> Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13870Jared Lobdell, Ph.D. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13870 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/t_ZQMW-uIpw/pub_display.php <p>Since President Felipe Calder&#243;n launched a military-led offensive against Mexico's powerful drug cartels in December 2006, some 42,000 people have perished. The situation is so bad that the Mexican government's authority in several portions of the country, especially along the border with the United States, is shaky, and the growing turbulence creates concerns that Mexico is in danger of becoming a failed state. Although such fears are excessive at this point, even that dire scenario can no longer be ruled out.</p> <p>U.S. political leaders and the American people also worry that Mexico's corruption and violence is seeping across the border into the United States. That danger is still fairly limited, but the trend is ominous. Both the number and severity of incidents along the border are rising.</p> <p>Experts propose several strategies for dealing with Mexico's drug violence. One suggestion is to apply the model used earlier to defeat the Colombian drug cartels. But the victory in Colombia is not as complete as proponents contend, and the situation in Mexico is far less favorable to using that strategy. Another suggested approach is to try to restore Mexico's status quo ante, in which the government largely looked the other way while drug traffickers sent their product to the United States. But too much has changed politically in Mexico for that approach, which would be only a temporary Band-Aid solution in any case.</p> <p>The only lasting, effective strategy is to defund the Mexican drug cartels. Reducing their billions of dollars in revenue requires the United States, as the principal consumer market for illegal drugs, to abandon its failed prohibition policy. That move would eliminate the lucrative black-market premium and greatly reduce the financial resources the cartels have available to bribe officials or hire enforcers to kill competitors and law enforcement personnel and intimidate the Mexican people. A refusal to abandon prohibition means that Mexico's agony will likely worsen and pose a significant security problem for the United States.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA688.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/ted-galen-carpenter">Ted Galen Carpenter</a>, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, is the author of eight books and more than 500 articles and policy studies on international issues. His latest book, </em>The Fire Next Door: Mexico's Drug Violence and the Danger to America<em>, is forthcoming in 2012.</em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=t_ZQMW-uIpw:18Z659niXMs:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=t_ZQMW-uIpw:18Z659niXMs:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=t_ZQMW-uIpw:18Z659niXMs:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=t_ZQMW-uIpw:18Z659niXMs:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=t_ZQMW-uIpw:18Z659niXMs:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=t_ZQMW-uIpw:18Z659niXMs:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=t_ZQMW-uIpw:18Z659niXMs:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=t_ZQMW-uIpw:18Z659niXMs:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=t_ZQMW-uIpw:18Z659niXMs:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=t_ZQMW-uIpw:18Z659niXMs:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/t_ZQMW-uIpw" height="1" width="1"/> Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13834Ted Galen Carpenter http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13834 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/3Nt9EjeHg1E/pub_display.php <p>It is commonly asserted, especially by people within higher education, that the American Ivory Tower is strapped for cash and tightfisted taxpayers are to blame. Taxpayer support for postsecondary education has long been in decline, this narrative goes, and has forced schools to continually raise tuition to make up for the losses.</p> <p>Tallying taxpayer-backed expenditures on higher education over the last quarter-century, and separately tallying 15 years of taxpayer burdens after accounting for student loans being paid back, reveals that this narrative is inaccurate. No matter how you slice it, the burden of funding the Ivory Tower has grown ever heavier on the backs of taxpaying citizens. Whether one examines taxpayer dollars in total, per enrollee, per degree, or per tax-paying citizen, real spending has gone up.</p> <p>Unfortunately, financial costs are only part of the story. While the evidence is not conclusive, it appears that the additional spending and the additional students and degrees it has helped to fund do not ultimately constitute a net societal gain. Instead, all the coerced, thirdparty support has likely produced several damaging, unintended consequences: credential inflation, sky-high noncompletion rates, and rampant tuition inflation. In other words, the money taken from taxpayers, in total and on an individual basis, to "invest" in higher education has been on the rise, and it appears to be hurting both taxpayers individually and society as a whole. We have taken money from people who would have used it more efficiently than has the system to which it was given.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa686.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey">Neal McCluskey</a> is associate director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom and author of the book </em><a href="http://www.cato.org/store/books/feds-classroom-how-big-government-corrupts-cripples-compromises-american-education-paperback">Feds in the Classroom: How Big Government Corrupts, Cripples, and Compromises American Education</a><em> (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=3Nt9EjeHg1E:IaRksDCsu8g:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=3Nt9EjeHg1E:IaRksDCsu8g:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=3Nt9EjeHg1E:IaRksDCsu8g:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=3Nt9EjeHg1E:IaRksDCsu8g:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=3Nt9EjeHg1E:IaRksDCsu8g:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=3Nt9EjeHg1E:IaRksDCsu8g:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=3Nt9EjeHg1E:IaRksDCsu8g:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=3Nt9EjeHg1E:IaRksDCsu8g:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=3Nt9EjeHg1E:IaRksDCsu8g:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=3Nt9EjeHg1E:IaRksDCsu8g:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/3Nt9EjeHg1E" height="1" width="1"/> Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13801Neal McCluskey http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13801 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/ZJOnPfp5_tQ/pub_display.php <p>Since the Cold War the United States has fought three major wars. Congress authorized each of these wars. The president has also initiated several limited wars. These limited wars have not been explicitly approved by Congress as required by Article I of the Constitution. A review of the history of making limited wars suggests several conclusions. First, the president has assumed a de facto power to begin and pursue a limited war, understood as a struggle where no American combat deaths are expected. Second, Congress has at times been highly critical of such wars but also highly deferential to the president in cases where the wars were brief and popular. Third, an active and critical Congress can shape the president's choices and decisions about such wars. Fourth, the public is often skeptical about limited wars and strongly supports congressional approval of such undertakings. Finally, until recently, presumed presidential authority under the Constitution was more important than the approval of international institutions in legitimating limited wars. In Libya the approval of the United Nations Security Council and other international institutions was essential to legitimating the war according the Obama administration. This incremental transfer of the war powers to international institutions contravenes the republican nature of the United States Constitution.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa687.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/john-samples">John Samples</a> is director of the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute. He is the author of </em><a href="http://www.cato.org/store/books/struggle-limit-government-modern-political-history-hardback">The Struggle to Limit Government</a><em> (2010) and </em><a href="http://www.cato.org/store/books/fallacy-campaign-finance-reform-hardback">The Fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform</a><em> (2006).</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ZJOnPfp5_tQ:Sb_E9mgxN-s:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ZJOnPfp5_tQ:Sb_E9mgxN-s:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=ZJOnPfp5_tQ:Sb_E9mgxN-s:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ZJOnPfp5_tQ:Sb_E9mgxN-s:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ZJOnPfp5_tQ:Sb_E9mgxN-s:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=ZJOnPfp5_tQ:Sb_E9mgxN-s:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ZJOnPfp5_tQ:Sb_E9mgxN-s:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ZJOnPfp5_tQ:Sb_E9mgxN-s:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ZJOnPfp5_tQ:Sb_E9mgxN-s:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=ZJOnPfp5_tQ:Sb_E9mgxN-s:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/ZJOnPfp5_tQ" height="1" width="1"/> Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13805John Samples http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13805 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/oDAAf8IHHSw/pub_display.php <p>Social Security is often described as a "foundational" element of the nation's social safety net. Almost all Americans are directly affected by the program and many millions primarily depend on its benefits for supporting themselves during retirement.1 But the program's financial condition has worsened considerably since the last recession, which began in 2007. In that year, the Social Security trustees estimated that the program's trust fund would be exhausted by 2042. The trustees' annual report for 2011 brings the trust fund exhaustion date forward to 2038. Indeed, the programs revenues fell short of its benefit expenditures in 2010 and it appears unlikely that significant surpluses will emerge again under the program's current rules. If the program's finances continue to worsen at this rate, it won't be long before the debate on reforming the program assumes an urgency and intensity similar to that during 1982-83, when imminent insolvency forced lawmakers to implement payroll tax increases and scale back its benefits.</p> <p>But Social Security reforms should also be implemented under accurate and full information about the program's financial condition. Also needed is a proper appreciation of the effects of alternative reforms on the program's overall financial condition and on the costs and benefits imposed on various participants' future finances &#8212; the young and old, rich and poor, male and female, and so on.2 But official evaluations of the program's fiscal condition and its projected finances are conducted using methods and metrics that should be considered long outdated. Moreover, analyses of distributional effects, especially over participants' lifetimes under current policies, are not included in the trustees' annual reports on Social Security's finances. Although the topic of Social Security almost always generates a robust debate, it is likely to be misguided under the projections and analysis provided by the program's trustees and actuaries. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the availability of better methods and metrics for evaluating Social Security's future finances and for assessing the reforms that have been proposed by lawmakers, academics, budget analysts, and others.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/researchnotes/WorkingPaper-6.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/jagadeesh-gokhale">Jagadeesh Gokhale</a> is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, and member of the Social Security Advisory Board.</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oDAAf8IHHSw:2wfItabjw94:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oDAAf8IHHSw:2wfItabjw94:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=oDAAf8IHHSw:2wfItabjw94:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oDAAf8IHHSw:2wfItabjw94:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oDAAf8IHHSw:2wfItabjw94:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=oDAAf8IHHSw:2wfItabjw94:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oDAAf8IHHSw:2wfItabjw94:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oDAAf8IHHSw:2wfItabjw94:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=oDAAf8IHHSw:2wfItabjw94:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=oDAAf8IHHSw:2wfItabjw94:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/oDAAf8IHHSw" height="1" width="1"/> Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13800Jagadeesh Gokhale http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13800 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/S6U7RHX4EGw/pub_display.php <p>Supporters of capping court awards for medical malpractice argue that caps will make health care more affordable. It may not be that simple. First, caps on awards may result in some patients not receiving adequate compensation for injuries they suffer as a result of physician negligence. Second, because caps limit physician liability, they can also mute incentives for physicians to reduce the risk of negligent injuries. Supporters of caps counter that this deterrent function of medical malpractice liability is not working anyway&#8212;that awards do not track actual damages, and medical malpractice insurance carriers do not translate the threat of liability into incentives that reward high-quality care or penalize errant physicians.</p> <p>This paper reviews an existing body of work that shows that medical malpractice awards do track actual damages. Furthermore, this paper provides evidence that medical malpractice insurance carriers use various tools to reduce the risk of patient injury, including experience rating of physicians' malpractice premiums. High-risk physicians face higher malpractice insurance premiums than their less-risky peers. In addition, carriers offer other incentives for physicians to reduce the risk of negligent care: they disseminate information to guide riskmanagement efforts, oversee high-risk practitioners, and monitor providers who offer new procedures where experience is not sufficient to assess risk. On rare occasions, carriers will even deny coverage, which cuts the physician off from an affiliation with most hospitals and health maintenance organizations, and precludes practice entirely in some states.</p> <p>If the medical malpractice liability insurance industry does indeed protect consumers, then policies that reduce liability or shield physicians from oversight by carriers may harm consumers. In particular, caps on damages would reduce physicians' and carriers' incentives to keep track of and reduce practice risk. Laws that shield government- employed physicians from malpractice liability eliminate insurance company oversight of physicians working for government agencies. State-run insurance pools that insure risky practitioners at subsidized prices protect substandard physicians from the discipline that medical malpractice insurers otherwise would impose.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa685.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/shirley-svorny">Shirley Svorny</a> is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and professor of economics at California State University, Northridge.</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=S6U7RHX4EGw:iAWlZ6d6P-Q:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=S6U7RHX4EGw:iAWlZ6d6P-Q:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=S6U7RHX4EGw:iAWlZ6d6P-Q:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=S6U7RHX4EGw:iAWlZ6d6P-Q:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=S6U7RHX4EGw:iAWlZ6d6P-Q:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=S6U7RHX4EGw:iAWlZ6d6P-Q:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=S6U7RHX4EGw:iAWlZ6d6P-Q:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=S6U7RHX4EGw:iAWlZ6d6P-Q:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=S6U7RHX4EGw:iAWlZ6d6P-Q:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=S6U7RHX4EGw:iAWlZ6d6P-Q:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/S6U7RHX4EGw" height="1" width="1"/> Thu, 20 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13780Shirley Svorny http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13780 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/qjzYONYhOC4/pub_display.php <p>The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the ensuing political firestorm brought to the fore some longstanding problems associated with the regulation of commercial activities of all kinds on federal lands. Unfortunately, those problems are not resolvable as long as the lands are governed by federal agents. Populist outcries against the "giveaway" of oil on public lands and the industry's refusal to drill even when leases are granted demonstrate the difficulty economists face when trying to construct a rational public lands management regime. The only promising avenue of reform is to privatize commercially attractive federal lands and institute a strict liability regime for damage to third parties in lieu of regulatory oversight. If privatization is too politically difficult to achieve, a second-best remedy would be to replace royalty payments for production with a one-time fee for use.</p> <p>Unfortunately, the Democratic reform proposals fail to address the underlying problems that have contributed to regulatory dysfunction. Worse, they veer off into tangential campaigns against foreign oil imports, oil consumption, and climate change. Examination of both President Obama's reform proposals and the main piece of Democratic legislation designed to address the spill &#8212; the American Clean Energy and Security Act (the so-called Waxman&#8211;Markey Bill) &#8212; suggest that the spill is being used as a pretext to advance dubious policy agendas that have little to do with the spill itself.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa684.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/richard-gordon">Richard L. Gordon</a> is professor emeritus of mineral economics at The Pennsylvania State University and adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=qjzYONYhOC4:LtBlJMRULpI:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=qjzYONYhOC4:LtBlJMRULpI:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=qjzYONYhOC4:LtBlJMRULpI:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=qjzYONYhOC4:LtBlJMRULpI:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=qjzYONYhOC4:LtBlJMRULpI:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=qjzYONYhOC4:LtBlJMRULpI:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=qjzYONYhOC4:LtBlJMRULpI:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=qjzYONYhOC4:LtBlJMRULpI:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=qjzYONYhOC4:LtBlJMRULpI:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=qjzYONYhOC4:LtBlJMRULpI:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/qjzYONYhOC4" height="1" width="1"/> Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13731Richard L. Gordon http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13731 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/jykry2jltBQ/pub_display.php <p>Politicians and pundits portray Herbert Hoover as a defender of laissez faire governance whose dogmatic commitment to small government led him to stand by and do nothing while the economy collapsed in the wake of the stock market crash in 1929. In fact, Hoover had long been a critic of laissez faire. As president, he doubled federal spending in real terms in four years. He also used government to prop up wages, restricted immigration, signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff, raised taxes, and created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation&#8212;all interventionist measures and not laissez faire. Unlike many Democrats today, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's advisers knew that Hoover had started the New Deal. One of them wrote, "When we all burst into Washington ... we found every essential idea [of the New Deal] enacted in the 100-day Congress in the Hoover administration itself."</p> <p>Hoover's big-spending, interventionist policies prolonged the Great Depression, and similar policies today could do similar damage. Dismantling the mythical presentation of Hoover as a "do-nothing" president is crucial if we wish to have a proper understanding of what did and did not work in the Great Depression so that we do not repeat Hoover's mistakes today.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp122.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em>Steven Horwitz is the Charles A. Dana is professor of economics at St. Lawrence University and affiliated senior scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=jykry2jltBQ:h8pxK5ClOGg:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=jykry2jltBQ:h8pxK5ClOGg:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=jykry2jltBQ:h8pxK5ClOGg:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=jykry2jltBQ:h8pxK5ClOGg:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=jykry2jltBQ:h8pxK5ClOGg:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=jykry2jltBQ:h8pxK5ClOGg:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=jykry2jltBQ:h8pxK5ClOGg:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=jykry2jltBQ:h8pxK5ClOGg:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=jykry2jltBQ:h8pxK5ClOGg:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=jykry2jltBQ:h8pxK5ClOGg:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/jykry2jltBQ" height="1" width="1"/> Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13719Steven Horwitz http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13719 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/hHatKwexdkQ/pub_display.php <p>Government transparency is a widely agreed upon goal, but progress on achieving it has been very limited. Transparency promises from political leaders such as President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner have not produced a burst of information that informs stronger public oversight of government. One reason for this is the absence of specifically prescribed data practices that will foster transparency.</p> <p>Four key data practices that support government transparency are: authoritative sourcing, availability, machine-discoverability, and machine-readability. The first, authoritative sourcing, means producing data as near to its origination as possible &#8212; and promptly &#8212; so that the public uniformly comes to rely on the best sources of data. The second, availability, is another set of practices that ensure consistency and confidence in data.</p> <p>The third transparent data practice, machine-discoverability, occurs when information is arranged so that a computer can discover the data and follow linkages among it. Machinediscoverability is produced when data is presented consistent with a host of customs about how data is identified and referenced, the naming of documents and files, the protocols for communicating data, and the organization of data within files.</p> <p>The fourth transparent data practice, machine-readability, is the heart of transparency, because it allows the many meanings of data to be discovered. Machine-readable data is logically structured so that computers can automatically generate the myriad stories that the data has to tell and put it to the hundreds of uses the public would make of it in government oversight.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp121.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper">Jim Harper</a> is director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute and webmaster of government transparency website WashingtonWatch.com.</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=hHatKwexdkQ:7OPbGCqFhkE:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=hHatKwexdkQ:7OPbGCqFhkE:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=hHatKwexdkQ:7OPbGCqFhkE:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=hHatKwexdkQ:7OPbGCqFhkE:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=hHatKwexdkQ:7OPbGCqFhkE:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=hHatKwexdkQ:7OPbGCqFhkE:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=hHatKwexdkQ:7OPbGCqFhkE:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=hHatKwexdkQ:7OPbGCqFhkE:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=hHatKwexdkQ:7OPbGCqFhkE:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=hHatKwexdkQ:7OPbGCqFhkE:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/hHatKwexdkQ" height="1" width="1"/> Fri, 23 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13701Jim Harper http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13701 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/ER1DAj_9Ia0/pub_display.php <p>The massive spending programs and new regulations adopted by many countries around the world in response to the economic crisis of 2008 have drawn renewed attention to the role of government in the economy. Studies of the relationship between government size and economic growth have come up with a wide range of estimates of the "optimal" or growth-maximizing size of government, ranging anywhere between 15 and 30 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).</p> <p>This paper argues that such an exercise is ill conceived. Modern growth economics suggests, first, that government policies leave their long-term impact primarily on the level of economic activity, not the growth rate; and, second, that the sources of this impact are multi-dimensional and not necessarily well measured by conventional measures of "size," such as the share of government spending in GDP.</p> <p>In fact, measures of economic freedom more closely relate to per capita GDP than do simple measures of government spending. The evidence shows that governments are generally larger than optimal, but because the available data include primarily countries whose governments are too large, it cannot plausibly say what the ideal size of government is. The data can realistically only say that smaller governments are better, and suggest that the optimal size of government is smaller than what we observe today.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/dbp/dbp7.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em>James A. Kahn is the Henry and Bertha Kressel Professor of Economics at Yeshiva University.</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ER1DAj_9Ia0:nbUyF25CmPw:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ER1DAj_9Ia0:nbUyF25CmPw:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=ER1DAj_9Ia0:nbUyF25CmPw:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ER1DAj_9Ia0:nbUyF25CmPw:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ER1DAj_9Ia0:nbUyF25CmPw:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=ER1DAj_9Ia0:nbUyF25CmPw:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ER1DAj_9Ia0:nbUyF25CmPw:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ER1DAj_9Ia0:nbUyF25CmPw:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=ER1DAj_9Ia0:nbUyF25CmPw:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=ER1DAj_9Ia0:nbUyF25CmPw:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/ER1DAj_9Ia0" height="1" width="1"/> Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13647James A. Kahn http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13647 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/HA3kpkcKsJE/pub_display.php <p>After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), an umbrella organization that would oversee 22 preexisting federal agencies. The idea was to improve the coordination of the federal government's counterterrorism effort, but the result has been an ever-expanding bureaucracy. </p> <p>DHS has too many subdivisions in too many disparate fields to operate effectively. Agencies with responsibilities for counterfeiting investigations, border security, disaster preparedness, federal law enforcement training, biological warfare defense, and computer incident response find themselves under the same cabinet official. This arrangement has not enhanced the government's competence. Americans are not safer because the head of DHS is simultaneously responsible for airport security and governmental efforts to counter potential flu epidemics. </p> <p>National defense is a key governmental responsibility, but focusing too many resources on trying to defend every potential terrorist target is a recipe for wasteful spending. Our limited resources are better spent on investigating and arresting aspiring terrorists. DHS responsibilities for aviation security, domestic surveillance, and port security have made it too easy for politicians to disguise pork barrel spending in red, white, and blue. Politicians want to bring money home to their districts, and as a result, DHS appropriations too often differ from what ought to be DHS priorities. </p> <p>The Department of Homeland Security should be abolished and its components reorganized into more practical groupings. The agencies tasked with immigration, border security, and customs enforcement belong under the same oversight agency, which could appropriately be called the Border Security Administration. The Transportation Security Administration and Federal Air Marshals Service should be abolished, and the federal government should end support for fusion centers. The remaining DHS organizations should return to their former parent agencies.</p> <p>Terrorism remains a serious problem, but policymakers ought to be more candid with the American public. Instead of pandering to fear and overreacting to every potential threat, policymakers should keep the risk of terrorist attacks in perspective and focus public resources on cost-effective measures.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA683.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em>David Rittgers is a legal policy analyst with the Cato Institute.</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=HA3kpkcKsJE:Vk8Sk0gxvv0:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=HA3kpkcKsJE:Vk8Sk0gxvv0:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=HA3kpkcKsJE:Vk8Sk0gxvv0:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=HA3kpkcKsJE:Vk8Sk0gxvv0:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=HA3kpkcKsJE:Vk8Sk0gxvv0:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=HA3kpkcKsJE:Vk8Sk0gxvv0:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=HA3kpkcKsJE:Vk8Sk0gxvv0:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=HA3kpkcKsJE:Vk8Sk0gxvv0:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=HA3kpkcKsJE:Vk8Sk0gxvv0:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=HA3kpkcKsJE:Vk8Sk0gxvv0:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/HA3kpkcKsJE" height="1" width="1"/> Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13650David Rittgers http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13650 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/kAdWRK_80ME/pub_display.php <p>There is a persistent debate over the role of scale of operations in education. Some argue that school franchises offer educational services more effectively than do small independent schools. Skeptics counter that large, centralized operations create hard-to-manage bureaucracies and foster diseconomies of scale and that small schools are more effective at promoting higher-quality education. The answer to this question has profound implications for U.S. education policy, because reliably scaling up the best schools has proven to be a particularly difficult problem. If there are policies that would make it easier to replicate the most effective schools, systemwide educational quality could be improved substantially.</p> <p>We can gain insight into this debate by examining Chile's national voucher program. This paper uses fourth-grade data to compare achievement in private franchise, private independent, and public schools in Chile. Our findings suggest that franchises have a large advantage over independent schools once student and peer attributes and selectivity are controlled for. We also find that further disaggregating school franchise widens the larger franchise advantage. We conclude that policies oriented toward creating incentives for private school owners to join or start up a franchise may have the potential for improving educational outcomes.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA682.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em>Gregory Elacqua is the director of the Public Policy Institute, School of Business and Economics, Universidad Diego Portales; Dante Contreras is professor of economics at the School of Business and Economics, Universidad de Chile; Felipe Salazar is a researcher at the Center for Comparative Education Policy; and Humberto Santos is a researcher at the Public Policy Institute, School of Business and Economics, Universidad Diego Portales.</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kAdWRK_80ME:vvr96Nimkp8:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kAdWRK_80ME:vvr96Nimkp8:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=kAdWRK_80ME:vvr96Nimkp8:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kAdWRK_80ME:vvr96Nimkp8:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kAdWRK_80ME:vvr96Nimkp8:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=kAdWRK_80ME:vvr96Nimkp8:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kAdWRK_80ME:vvr96Nimkp8:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kAdWRK_80ME:vvr96Nimkp8:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=kAdWRK_80ME:vvr96Nimkp8:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=kAdWRK_80ME:vvr96Nimkp8:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/kAdWRK_80ME" height="1" width="1"/> Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13514Gregory Elacqua, Dante Contreras, Felipe Salazar, Humberto Santos http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13514 http://feeds.cato.org/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~3/l8C0V6wDFhk/pub_display.php <p>Political clientelism and rent seeking have been the central organizing principles of Greek society since the foundation of the Greek state in the 19th century. The influence of the Eastern Orthodox Church on Greek nationalism and the legacy of the patrimonialist Ottoman empire produced a weak civil society. The result has been a disproportionately large Greek state and public bureaucracy since the 1800s that set the stage for rent-seeking struggles that have followed.</p> <p>Since the 1930s, political patronage has been disbursed through increases in public sector employment, regulations that limit competition, and the imposition of levies on transactions that benefit third parties. The resulting system has encouraged corruption, discouraged wealth creation and affected popular ideological narratives. The view that the state is good and that markets are bad is widespread, held across the political spectrum, and is understandable in a rent-seeking society where all activities, including market transactions, are seen as redistribution. But the realization of "putting people above markets" has deepened clientelism and produced the current national crisis.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/researchnotes/WorkingPaper-5.pdf">Download this publication [PDF]</a></p> <p><em><em>Takis Michas is a journalist at the Greek national daily, </em>Eleftherotypia<em>, and the author of numerous books including </em>The Absence of Civil Society in Greece<em> (Arhus Universitetsforlag, 1989) and </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Alliance-Milosevics-Eugenia-Stewart/dp/158544183X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#x26;qid=1313418599&#x26;sr=8-1/tag=catoinstitute-12" target="_blank">Unholy Alliance: Greece and Milosevic's Serbia</a><em> (Texas A&#x26;M University Press, 2002).</em></em></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=l8C0V6wDFhk:79Ammuuhplw:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=l8C0V6wDFhk:79Ammuuhplw:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=l8C0V6wDFhk:79Ammuuhplw:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=l8C0V6wDFhk:79Ammuuhplw:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=l8C0V6wDFhk:79Ammuuhplw:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=l8C0V6wDFhk:79Ammuuhplw:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=l8C0V6wDFhk:79Ammuuhplw:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=l8C0V6wDFhk:79Ammuuhplw:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.cato.org/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?a=l8C0V6wDFhk:79Ammuuhplw:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute?i=l8C0V6wDFhk:79Ammuuhplw:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PublicationsFromTheCatoInstitute/~4/l8C0V6wDFhk" height="1" width="1"/> Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13569Takis Michas http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13569