Daily Policy Digest
Economic Issues
| Expanding the Export-Import Bank's Mandate Is a Big Mistake Proponents of the Export-Import Bank emphasize that it provides assistance to companies when the private sector won't, but this line of thought actually emphasizes the inherent risk in the bank's objectives... |
| Georgia's Economic Renaissance Georgia has a debt-to-gross domestic product ratio that is a very manageable 38 percent -- half that of the United States, the United Kingdom and France... |
| Europe's Real Crisis Because of its economic centrality to the Eurozone, analysts have remarked that the ability of Italy to accept austerity and pay off its debt will likely determine the fate of the whole system... |
| A New Housing Finance System for the United States America maintains a high outstanding mortgage-to-gross domestic product ratio of 81.4 percent (as of 2009) -- much higher than the European average of 63.3 percent... |
| Red Tape Rising: Obama-Era Regulation at the Three-Year Mark During the three years of the Obama administration, a total of 106 new major regulations have been imposed at a cost of more than $46 billion annually, and nearly $11 billion in one-time implementation costs... |
| How to Lower Gasoline Prices On January 20, 2009 the average price of gasoline was $1.84 per gallon, but it has since risen to $3.28 per gallon... |
| How Free-Market Kidney Sales Can Save Lives and Lower the Total Cost of Kidney Transplants The supply increase of kidneys associated with selling them on a market would result in a reduction of as many as 4,573 annual deaths from kidney disease... |
| Trade Policy Priority One: Averting a U.S.-China "Trade War" Policymakers in the United States and China have begun a tit-for-tat pattern of protectionist measures that, if allowed to continue unchecked, could spark a downward-spiraling trade war... |
| The Misleading Tale of Income Inequality The ratio of spending between the top and bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, measured on a per person basis, was essentially unchanged between 1985 and 2010... |
| Young Adults See Their Pay Decline The average inflation-adjusted hourly wage for male college graduates aged 23 to 29 dropped 11 percent over the past decade to $21.68 in 2011; for female college graduates of the same age, the average wage is down 7.6 percent to $18.80... |
