Daily Policy Digest
Economic Issues
| Regulations Reduce Community Bank Lending Regulations intended to keep another financial crisis from occurring are penalizing local community banks whose business models are not a threat to the financial system... |
| Funeral Industry Anticompetitive Because there are no repeat customers in the funeral industry and no shortage of customers, there are few competitive forces that would drive prices down... |
| Dental Industry Insiders Thwart Competition from Teeth-Whitening Entrepreneurs At least 30 states have attempted to shut down teeth-whitening businesses, and far more often than not, dental-industry interests, not consumers, drove these actions... |
| Zoning Kills Affordable Housing Local residents employ zoning laws that mandate minimum lot sizes and keep entire towns out of reach for all but the wealthy... |
| Manufacturing Sector: Key to Economic Recovery Since 2011, the manufacturing jobless rate has stayed below the national rate -- in April, the jobless rate was 6.4 percent, a full 1 percent lower than the national average... |
| Why Were Young People Hit Harder by the Recession? The big drop in home prices between 2007 and 2010 meant a 59 percent loss in home equity for people under age 35, compared with just 26 percent for people generally... |
| Supporting Small Business Is the Way to Economic Recovery Over the long run, small businesses account for approximately 66 percent of all net new job creation... |
| How We Underestimate Long-Term Unemployment In 2007, the average unemployed person who dropped out of the labor force looked for a job for nine weeks; by 2011, that figure had risen to over 21 weeks... |
| Study: Money Can Buy Happiness Data show that the relationship between wellbeing and income rises linearly as income rises... |
| Demographic Decline Has Serious Implications In the developed world, and even in the developing world, fertility is below the 2.1 total fertility rate needed for populations to remain stable, meaning that populations are declining... |
