Incentives
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What Zohran Mamdani Could Learn From His Father
Mahmood Mamdani’s research showed why people often don’t behave the way central planners wish they would. His son faces a similar test in New York.
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The Great Repricing of the College Degree
The college wage premium remains substantial, but has declined sharply since 2022. Generative AI may be part of the explanation, but it is not the whole story.
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Cheap Groceries, Costly Consequences: City-Run Stores Ignore Second-Order Effects
New York’s city-run stores promise cheaper groceries, but their discounts merely transfer costs. Taxpayers foot the bill, while bodegas and grocers lose customers.
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Good Intentions Paved the Road to the 2008 Financial Crisis
The financial crisis demonstrated how regulations can produce dangerous incentives — and how discretionary intervention can magnify uncertainty. Eighteen years later, policymakers remain tempted by both.
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Bono’s Hard-Won Lesson About Poverty
Aid may relieve immediate suffering, but only productivity, enterprise, and strong institutions can conquer poverty for good.
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When Government Separates Choices from Consequences
From tariffs to “free” public services, government policies routinely transfer the costs and consequences of individual choices onto someone else.
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America’s Public Schools Have an Empty-Desk Problem
Chronic absenteeism is soaring. The government school monopoly has few incentives to change.
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Professionals to ‘Labor’: Why California’s Doctors Are Unionizing
California’s unionization campaign reveals the economic and institutional shifts away from physician ownership and professional autonomy.
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When Rational Individual Choices Produce Collective Waste
Why we keep paying for practices nobody wants—and what finally makes them disappear.
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What the Olympics Really Cost: Rio’s 10-Year Legacy of Debt and Destruction
Rio 2016, like many ambitious projects, combined political cronyism and weak market discipline. Ordinary Brazilians are still paying the bill.
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•
What Zohran Mamdani Could Learn From His Father
Mahmood Mamdani’s research showed why people often don’t behave the way central planners wish they would. His son faces a similar test in New York.
-
•
The Great Repricing of the College Degree
The college wage premium remains substantial, but has declined sharply since 2022. Generative AI may be part of the explanation, but it is not the whole story.
-
•
Cheap Groceries, Costly Consequences: City-Run Stores Ignore Second-Order Effects
New York’s city-run stores promise cheaper groceries, but their discounts merely transfer costs. Taxpayers foot the bill, while bodegas and grocers lose customers.
-
•
Good Intentions Paved the Road to the 2008 Financial Crisis
The financial crisis demonstrated how regulations can produce dangerous incentives — and how discretionary intervention can magnify uncertainty. Eighteen years later, policymakers remain tempted by both.
-
•
Bono’s Hard-Won Lesson About Poverty
Aid may relieve immediate suffering, but only productivity, enterprise, and strong institutions can conquer poverty for good.
-
•
When Government Separates Choices from Consequences
From tariffs to “free” public services, government policies routinely transfer the costs and consequences of individual choices onto someone else.
-
•
America’s Public Schools Have an Empty-Desk Problem
Chronic absenteeism is soaring. The government school monopoly has few incentives to change.
-
•
Professionals to ‘Labor’: Why California’s Doctors Are Unionizing
California’s unionization campaign reveals the economic and institutional shifts away from physician ownership and professional autonomy.
-
•
When Rational Individual Choices Produce Collective Waste
Why we keep paying for practices nobody wants—and what finally makes them disappear.
-
•
What the Olympics Really Cost: Rio’s 10-Year Legacy of Debt and Destruction
Rio 2016, like many ambitious projects, combined political cronyism and weak market discipline. Ordinary Brazilians are still paying the bill.