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August 3, 2023
Does Money (and Economic Growth) Buy Happiness?
…enough. In a 2010 paper, Nobel-laureate economists Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton found that once incomes hit a ceiling of $75,000, further gains do not make us happier. So Scandinavia and the…
August 2, 2023
The Best Predictor of Happiness in America? Marriage
Americans who are married with children are now leading happier and more prosperous lives, on average, than men and women who are single and childless. Is that statement surprising? In an age…
July 21, 2023
Can Spain Defuse Its Depopulation Bomb?
Over the past 40 years, no party has dominated the Spanish political landscape like the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, or PSOE, now headed by Pedro Sánchez. Yet frustration over its…
July 18, 2023
The Great Recession, COVID-19, Interest Hikes Left a 15-Year Mark on Housing
How have the Great Recession in 2007, the COVID-19 pandemic that hit in 2020, and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes that started in 2022 affected mortgages in the region?…
July 17, 2023
What the Rise in Dog Attacks Signals About the State of America’s Social Capital
If you have ever had the unfortunate experience of being attacked or bitten by a dog, you’re not alone. The one time it happened to me was while walking at…
July 12, 2023
Local News and Social Capital
Joseph Schumpeter famously observed that capitalism unleashed “creative destruction.”[i] If that is so for American journalism, just such a wave has, without doubt, been destroying local newspapers. What’s not yet clear…
June 30, 2023
House Republican Plan Penalizes Marriage
We just got more bad news about marriage. A record-high 25% of 40-year-olds in the United States were never married in 2021, according to sobering new statistics from the Pew Research Center. That statistic compares to…
June 22, 2023
In An Age Of Low Social Trust, Stopping By Your Neighbor’s House Is Weird And Creepy
…stopping by a neighbor’s house has become rare enough as to strike many as creepy. Witness the June 2023 advertisement for DirecTV. Actor Brian Cox explains to the viewer that…
June 16, 2023
Marriage Is Still the Best Way to Bond a Father to His Children
…Institute on April 25, 2023. The event, which was moderated by IFS senior fellow Brad Wilcox, featured a discussion between Richard Reeves and Ian Rowe on the question: “Does strengthening fatherhood depend upon…
June 11, 2023
Now Political Polarization Comes for Marriage Prospects
Marriage rates in America are falling fast: Many men and women are marrying later, and more and more people are never marrying at all. Marriage is in retreat for a host of reasons, but…