Category Archives: Publications

Pay College Athletes

Posted on April 1, 2022 | Comments Off on Pay College Athletes

No March Madness tournament would be complete without at least one school being caught paying its players in violation of NCAA rules. This year, the Memphis Tigers allegedly did the honors. In a piece syndicated by Inside Sources, I argue that the NCAA should allow colleges to pay their players for three main reasons:

The first is fairness. College players are unpaid laborers who generate millions of dollars for others.

The second is that big-time college sports are, in fact, a business. There is nothing amateur about the NCAA’s $1.15 billion in revenue, its marketing deals, college coaches’ and athletic directors’ salaries, or the amount of time many athletes put in to compete at a high level.

The third reason is practical: Black markets exist. Some star college players will always be paid, no matter what the NCAA says. It should be above the table so schools and the NCAA can keep a better eye on it.

Read the whole thing here.

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Posted in Economics, labor, Media Appearances, Publications, Sports

Antitrust Is Political

Posted on March 15, 2022 | Comments Off on Antitrust Is Political

Antitrust regulation is just as politicized as other forms of regulation. Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich’s just-announced investigation into investors whose politics he doesn’t like is just the latest example, as I point out in a letter that ran in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has opened an antitrust investigation into investment funds centered around environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals. He argues that they are financing a coordinated political agenda (“ESG May Be an Antitrust Violation,” op-ed, March 7). First Amendment concerns and the heavy legal lift of proving collusion aside, this investigation is wrongheaded for two reasons.

First, two wrongs don’t make a right. Mr. Brnovich is right that many ESG funds are politicized. But the remedy is not antitrust enforcement, which itself is politicized—not to mention slow, ineffective, and prone to regulatory capture.

Second, it is unwise to give new ideas to the Federal Trade Commission’s Lina Khan, Sens. Josh Hawley and Amy Klobuchar, and others looking to expand antitrust regulation. Antitrust mission creep has already crept too far.

Ryan Young

Competitive Enterprise Institute

Washington

The letter is here. Brnovich’s original column is here.

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Posted in Antitrust, Correspondence, Economics, Media Appearances, Political Animals, Public Choice, Publications

How to Fill 10 Million Vacant Jobs

Posted on November 5, 2021 | Comments Off on How to Fill 10 Million Vacant Jobs

Would raising the minimum wage help to fill the more than 10 million job vacancies currently open? It makes some intuitive sense—higher pay will attract more workers. The trouble is that minimum wages have tradeoffs that cancel out that higher pay, so it wouldn’t work. As I explain in an op-ed for Inside Sources:

Workers earn more than wages. They also earn non-wage pay. If the law requires employers to raise wages, they can and do make up the difference by cutting non-wage pay. …

Restaurant workers, for example, might lose complimentary shift meals. Customers might leave smaller tips if they believe their server is getting a higher hourly wage. A restaurant owner might decide not to hire busboys and instead ask servers to add those duties to their already full plates. Retail workers might have to pay for formerly free parking, have fewer or shorter breaks, or lose employee discounts or tuition assistance.

Some employees might get their hours cut (an obvious tradeoff for which recent Nobel laureate David Card’s famous co-authored study failed to account).

Minimum wages don’t work as intended, but there is still a lot that policy makers can do to help get people back into the workforce. They should loosen job-killing occupational licenses, reform zoning and land-use regulations that inflate rents that could instead go to paying salaries, reform financial regulations that make it difficult for companies to hire and grow, and undo Trump-era trade barriers that are sludging up supply networks.

Read the whole piece here. See also my CEI study, “Minimum Wages Have Tradeoffs.”

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Posted in Economics, Minimum Wage, Publications

A Sustained Recovery Needs a Deregulatory Stimulus

Posted on July 6, 2021 | Comments Off on A Sustained Recovery Needs a Deregulatory Stimulus

Over in The Hill, Wayne Crews and I argue that more deficit spending won’t help the COVID recovery. Regulatory reform is more powerful stimulus and won’t increase the deficit. It will also leave both the private and the public sector more resilient against the next crisis:

Trump’s failure to engage Congress was a massive missed opportunity, especially since his party held a majority in both chambers of Congress for his first two years. The regulatory “tax” is at least as significant as the fiscal tax reform he emphasized. Had Congress codified “Trumpian” reforms in legislation—and GOP members had introduced several bills to do so (and have even done so again, with greater futility, in the Biden era)—they would still be in place.

Now, as the recovery from COVID and the political reaction to it continues, regulatory relief would be a potent economic stimulus that would not add to the deficit like everything else that was and is being pursued, such as Biden’s costly and interventionist jobs and families plans. 

The just-released 2021 edition of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual Ten Thousand Commandments report pegs regulatory costs at least $2 trillion per year—more than twice the total cost of the infrastructure spending bill the House passed last Thursday.

Read the whole thing here. See also the just-released 2021 edition of Wayne’s Ten Thousand Commandments report.

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Posted in Publications, regulation

A Better Approach to Tariff Diplomacy

Posted on June 17, 2021 | Comments Off on A Better Approach to Tariff Diplomacy

In diplomacy, carrots tend to be more effective than sticks. Yet, two consecutive administrations have used tariff threats to try to achieve their objectives. Former President Trump did four rounds of back-and-forth tariffs against China, and President Biden is trying it now to counter proposed digital taxes from six mostly European countries. The strategy has yet to work. Over at National Review, I take a look at a better way: Rather than threaten new tariffs, promise to remove old ones as a sweetener.

Why not scrap Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs in exchange for scrapping proposed digital taxes? Carrots are often more effective than sticks.

The metal tariffs will also likely be an issue at this week’s United States–European Union summit. European leaders want a December 1 deadline for ending them. In return, they would end the retaliatory tariffs they immposed in response. A digital tax moratorium should also be part of the deal.

Here at home, the metal tariffs are slowing the COVID recovery by raising auto and housing prices, which were already at record highs. They are also causing needless diplomatic frictions with allies. Removing them is a win-win.

Even if the diplomatic goal fails—there are no guarantees in foreign policy—the lower tariff would still help the U.S. economy. Read the whole thing here.

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Posted in Economics, International, Publications, Trade

Stimulating the COVID Recovery without Trillions in Spending

Posted on June 9, 2021 | Comments Off on Stimulating the COVID Recovery without Trillions in Spending

Over at Inside Sources, I make the case that deregulation, freer trade, and continued vaccinations will do more to open up the economy than the trillions of dollars of politicized spending Congress is lining up:

Federal, state, and local regulators eased more than 800 regulations last year that were blocking access to telemedicine, medical supplies, and food and grocery deliveries, along with unneeded occupational licenses that were keeping people out of work. We’ve already seen the benefits. Now policymakers need to continue this important work as entrepreneurs look for ways to adapt to the new normal but find themselves blocked because they don’t have the right permit.

Steel and aluminum tariffs left over from the Trump administration are adding hundreds of dollars to car prices and thousands of dollars to construction costs, at a time when housing prices are becoming unaffordable for many buyers. Congress could get rid of them today if it wanted to. Congress should also stop Biden’s proposed doubling of Canadian lumber tariffs, which would further increase housing prices while alienating an ally with whom we just signed the USMCA trade agreement. He has also proposed an additional $2 billion in tariffs against six mostly allied countries with whom we will be negotiating trade agreements in the near future. These would come into effect in the middle of the holiday shopping season.

My colleague Wayne Crews has a good term for this type of proposal: a deregulatory stimulus. Read the whole thing here.

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Posted in Economics, Publications, Spending, Stimulus, Trade

To-Do List for 2021: Just Get Rid of AB5

Posted on December 17, 2020 | Comments Off on To-Do List for 2021: Just Get Rid of AB5

It isn’t just Washington that gets a fresh start in January. California gets one, too. One of the top items on the Golden State’s policy agenda should be getting rid of what’s left of Assembly Bill 5, the controversial gig-worker law. As I argue this morning in several California newspapers, including the Orange County Register:

California’s unemployment rate is at 9.3 percent, compared to 6.7 percent nationally. California voters helped by passing Proposition 22 in November, which exempts app-based rideshare and delivery companies like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash from California’s Assembly Bill 5 “gig work” law. This comes months after the state legislature passed an “oops” bill to exempt thousands of other workers that AB5 accidentally threw out of work, from journalists to musicians. Now that AB5 no longer applies even to its primary ridesharing targets, the legislature should just get rid of AB5 altogether. Meanwhile, the rest of the country should learn from California’s experiment.

Read the whole piece here. For more on AB5, see other pieces by Ryan Radia, Sean Higgins, and me.

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Posted in labor, Publications, regulation

The 2020 Election Actually Had Some Free-Market Victories

Posted on November 5, 2020 | Comments Off on The 2020 Election Actually Had Some Free-Market Victories

Neither presidential candidate has much interest in limited government. But over at National Review, I look at some neglected down-ballot victories from the 2020 election. A divided Congress will prevent one party from running everything, regardless of who wins the White House. There were also several state-level victories across the country. 

California voters partially undid the AB5 gig-worker law that made unemployment even worse during the pandemic. They also voted against an expansion of rent control, which is one reason California’s housing prices are so high.

Not that legislators will listen, but Illinois voters sent them a message to address the state’s pension crisis by cutting spending rather than raising taxes:

The Illinois legislature had already passed a separate tax hike bill, conditional on voters approving the amendment. Voters disapproved by a 55-45 margin, and taxes will remain as they are.

Voters in Oregon and several other states also continued to deescalate the drug war:

In order for people to respect the law, they have to be able to respect it. That was a major cultural cost of alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, and of the drug war today. Drug legalization allows law enforcement to focus on real crimes and ease an avoidable source of antagonism between police officers and the communities they serve—especially in minority areas where drug laws are disproportionately enforced.

Washington state voters registered disapproval of a plastic bag tax. This is a victory for my colleague Angela Logomasini, who has written about the issue here and here.

A lot went wrong in the 2020 election, as is true every year. But some things also went right. Now let’s build on those victories and create some new ones.

Read the whole thing here. Ideas for the next free-market victories are at neverneeded.cei.org.

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Posted in #NeverNeeded, Economics, Elections, labor, Nanny State, Publications, Reform, regulation, Taxation

Regulatory Relief Needs Better Transparency

Posted on November 4, 2020 | Comments Off on Regulatory Relief Needs Better Transparency

Getting rid of #NeverNeeded regulations is one of the most important policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The short-term benefits are obvious. But the long-term benefits are arguably more important, for both long-term growth and resilience against the next crisis. My colleague Alex Reinauer and I have a short piece over at RealClearPolicy looking at just how much deregulation has happened in the wake of COVID. It’s actually very difficult to tell how much there is, due to a lack of transparency:

Transparency is important, especially during a crisis. Agencies need to do more than look like they are “doing something” in response to COVID. Congress and the president need to ensure agencies follow existing transparency requirements. Additional safeguards such as annual agency regulatory report cards will keep agencies more honest during this and future crises. Then policy makers and the public can judge for themselves what agencies are faring, and how they can do it better. It’s a lot more cost effective than another $1 trillion “stimulus.”

These transparency problems are a system-level problem that needs to be addressed. Agencies need to follow existing transparency guidelines. People need to know what they are doing, how much it costs, and what agencies are doing to improve their work. As we often say at CEI, institutions matter. It is not enough to reform this or that rule. The larger institutions that create those rules also need to be reformed.

Read the whole piece here. For more reform ideas, visit neverneeded.cei.org.

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Posted in #NeverNeeded, Publications, regulation

New Paper: Antitrust Regulation is #NeverNeeded

Posted on September 23, 2020 | Comments Off on New Paper: Antitrust Regulation is #NeverNeeded

My colleague Jessica Melugin and I, along with our former colleague Patrick Hedger, have a new paper out today, “Repeal #NeverNeeded Antitrust Laws that Hinder COVID-19 Response: Smokestack-Era Laws Favor Established Interests and Do Not Encourage Competition.” The tech companies that regulators are targeting have made a difficult pandemic easier to endure. Antitrust lawsuits would not help the COVID-19 response. Since the real cost of antitrust policy is its chilling effect on new innovations, ramping up antitrust enforcement would leave the country less resilient against the next crisis.

Amazon has made it easy for people to get no-contact deliveries of household supplies and groceries—and spurred competitive responses from Walmart, Target, and other retailers. Facebook makes it easy for people to stay in touch while staying socially distant. Google makes it easy to find information about the virus and stay up to date. As the paper concludes:

Antitrust investigations at the federal and state level should be suspended during the COVID-19 crisis and, ideally, abandoned permanently. The unintended consequences of market distortion and chilled innovation are the last thing consumers and businesses need right now—or ever. This is no time for politicians and government lawyers to promote their own careers through the posturing of antitrust enforcement. Consumer benefit and business resiliency must be preserved and antitrust enforcement must not be prioritized or expanded.

Read the whole thing here. For more on antitrust, see Wayne Crews’s and my paper “The Case against Antitrust Law” and CEI’s dedicated antitrust site, antitrust.cei.org.

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Posted in #NeverNeeded, Antitrust, Economics, Publications