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October 3, 2024
Protectionism is Failing and Wrongheaded: An Evaluation of the Post-2017 Shift toward Trade Wars and Industrial Policy
Abstract The Trump–Pence and Biden–Harris administrations enthusiastically embraced protectionism. Each administration explicitly argued for a break from the bipartisan consensus of recent decades that has been generally supportive of free…
September 23, 2024
Toward a Potential Grand Bargain for the Nation
The views expressed in this report are those of the individual authors who collectively constitute the Grand Bargain Committee, co-chaired by Michael R. Strain and Isabel V. Sawhill. This report…
September 5, 2024
Hurt Pennsylvania’s Workers to Win Pennsylvania’s Votes?
Have populist politics gotten so out of control that politicians believe they need to hurt Pennsylvania’s workers in order to win Pennsylvania’s electoral votes? Yesterday, the Washington Post reported: President Joe Biden is…
September 3, 2024
Event: New Census Data on American Families’ Economic Well-Being
…Opportunity and Family Policy Studies, Cato Institute Bradley Hardy, Associate Professor, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University Michael R. Strain, Director, Economic Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute Scott Winship,…
June 26, 2024
American Workers Are Doing Great. They Could Be Doing Even Better.
Editor’s note: This is one of a pair of essays responding to the Economic Innovation Group’s report, “The American Worker: Toward a New Consensus”, by Adam Ozimek, John Lettieri, and…
June 10, 2024
Employment and Labor Supply Responses to the Child Tax Credit Expansion: Theory and Evidence
Abstract The 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansion increased government benefits to families, and especially to families with the lowest incomes. Economic theory predicts that this policy intervention would have…
June 10, 2024
The Economic World We’ve Lost
…more countries adopt subsidies, any benefits from them become blunted. Taxpayer money may as well be lit on fire. While the IRA has strained international alliances, Trump would do even…
June 4, 2024
What Comes After Neoliberalism?
The steep tariff increases on Chinese goods that US President Joe Biden’s administration recently announced are just the latest in a long string of interventionist economic policies that fly in…
May 13, 2024
The American Dream Is Alive and Well (and the Problem of US Inequality Greatly Exaggerated)
Don’t listen to the populist naysayers: The U.S. economy continues to deliver jobs, higher wages and upward mobility for those who need it most. What do former President Trump and Bernie Sanders have…
December 18, 2023
The State of Democratic Capitalism: 2023
…is wrong. Their solutions won’t work. That economic reality will lead to a political course correction. The future for democratic capitalism is bright. Michael R. Strain holds the Arthur F….