October 9, 2024
Learning the Right Lessons from the “China Shock”
An influential 2013 paper by economists David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson finds an average reduction in manufacturing employment of 90,000 jobs per year from 1990 to 2007 because of U.S. competition with imports from China. Those economists published another important paper, along with economists Daron Acemoglu and Brendan Price, that found import growth from China led to…
October 9, 2024
Two Cheers for California’s Ban on Legacy Admissions
Last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a new statewide ban on legacy admissions. It bars all colleges and universities, public or private, from taking into consideration an applicant’s relationship to alumni or donors after the ban takes effect in September 2025. In a signing statement, Newsom said, “In California, everyone should be able to get ahead through…
October 9, 2024
Kamala Harris’s Main Priority Is Expanding Welfare, Not Strengthening the Middle Class
Last week’s vice-presidential debate was chock-full of references to the middle class and plans to improve conditions for the middle class. That’s also a common refrain to the stump speech of presidential candidate Kamala Harris: She touts that she comes from the middle class, supports the middle class, and values the work ethic that defines the…
October 8, 2024
Harris Housing Subsidies: A Recipe for Repeating Past Mistakes
Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has proposed housing policies that recycle ineffective strategies long seen in federal housing programs. Her key proposals include subsidies for the construction of 3 million new housing units over four years and $100 billion in down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers. Unfortunately, history tells us her plan would be worse than…
October 7, 2024
Presidential Candidates’ Dueling Child Credit Expansions Explained
The Trump-Vance and Harris-Walz presidential campaigns have each recently proposed large expansions to the child tax credit (CTC). Both proposals might be intended to appeal to similar voters, but they vary significantly regarding budgetary cost, distribution of benefits, and effect on work incentives. This article compares the proposed expansions with the current Tax Cuts and Jobs…
October 7, 2024
Has Kamala Harris Given Up on “College for All”?
In 2009, then-President Obama made a bold proposal: “By 2020, this nation will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.” His administration then pursued a slew of policies to boost college attendance, including fatter tuition tax credits, a larger Pell Grant, and free tuition at community colleges. Echoing Obama, over the next several…
October 7, 2024
Why Middle Class Wages Aren’t Growing
Senior Fellow Kevin Corinth discusses factors hindering wage growth for the middle class.
October 3, 2024
Six Ideas to Fix Higher Education in 2025
America will have a new president and a new Congress in 2025, and with that change comes the opportunity to rethink federal policy towards higher education. The federal approach suffers from many problems, but the core one is that federal subsidies indiscriminately fund traditional colleges, regardless of their financial value, and shortchange promising alternatives, such…
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 trade and of allowing markets to shape US industrial and employment composition. But the protectionism of the Trump and Biden administrations has not succeeded and…
October 3, 2024
Stop the insanity. Our national debt now tops $35 trillion…
America’s political leaders have a spending problem. They know entitlement programs feature benefit promises far exceeding their tax base, but have done nothing to make them sound. Meanwhile, both parties demand more spending increases — despite the national debt soaring to $35 trillion, or more than $100,000 for each American, rich and poor alike. Under rosy assumptions, over $20 trillion in…