The Independent Review—Summer 2014 Issue Now Available

Summer is here—and so is the summer issue of the Independent Institute’s quarterly journal. Here are some of the topics that subscribers of The Independent Review can look forward to reading about:

• What’s wrong with recent economic studies calling for new regulations meant to reduce so-called “systemic risks” to the financial system? According to Alexander William Salter, they’ve neglected two fundamental problems. (Read a summary.)

• What do election studies reveal about the effects of campaign contributions on the decisions of elected officials? Jeffrey Milyo offers evidence that challenges widespread views about corporate influence and political corruption. (Read a summary.)

• Do minimum-wage laws have an ethical leg to stand on? The answer depends on a distinction between “magnanimous morality” and “mundane morality,” argues Dwight R. Lee. (Read a summary.)

• What’s wrong with using “sin taxes” to discourage bad behavior and cost shifting? One problem is that this creates its own kind of social pathologies, according to Adam J. Hoffer, William F. Shughart II, and Michael D. Thomas. (Read a summary.)

• Measuring human freedom is tricky. Fred McMahon and Alan Dowd assess how well recent freedom indexes have reflected conceptions of liberty put forward by two millennia of political thought. (Read a summary.)

• Jimmy Carter wasn’t known for many economic policy successes during his tenure in the Oval Office, but thanks to economist Alfred Kahn, airline deregulation was a great success. John Howard Brown explains what this episode can teach today’s advocates of smaller government. (Read a summary.)

• What made the late Ronald Coase among the most influential economists of the past century? John V. C. Nye offers his take on the 1991 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences. (Read a summary.)

• Does the collapse of a garment factory building in Bangladesh buttress the case for boycotting sweatshops? No, not unless the goal is to prevent developing countries from using the same springboards out of poverty that the West used in its own economic development, according to Benjamin Powell. (Read the full article.)

• The Federal Reserve’s zero interest-rate policy has been disastrous for those who live on interest earnings, especially many seniors. Robert Higgs explains. (Read the full article.)

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[This post first appeared in the June 24, 2014, issue of The Lighthouse. To subscribe to this weekly email newsletter and other bulletins from the Independent Institute, enter your email address here.]