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Jan 31, 2025 | 
econlib.org | David Henderson |Kevin Corcoran
There are two competing narratives about the causes of the tremendous destruction of buildings and lives that the recent Southern California fires have wreaked. One group of people blames the destruction on climate change. Another group blames it on bad government policy that has nothing to do with climate. Which side is more correct? The second side.
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Jan 30, 2025 | 
hoover.org | David Henderson
There are two competing narratives about the causes of the tremendous destruction of buildings and lives that the recent Southern California fires have wreaked. One group of people blames the destruction on climate change. Another group blames it on bad government policy that has nothing to do with climate. Which side is more correct? The second side.
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Jan 29, 2025 | 
independent.org | David Henderson |Phillip W. Magness
In his inaugural address, President Trump repeated his call for an External Revenue Service. At other times, he has talked about replacing personal income taxes with high tariffs on imports. Besides the fact that U.S. tariffs on imports are collected from U.S. importers, not external exporters, this idea would not work and would likely result in a higher tax burden for Americans.
Current income tax revenues are about $2.5 trillion per year. Goods imports are just over $3 trillion per year.
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Jan 9, 2025 | 
hoover.org | David Henderson
During the fall 2023 election that brought Javier Milei to power as president of Argentina, 108 economists signed a statement opposing the bulk of Milei’s economic proposals. Among these critics were French economist Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, a 2014 book that made a case for much higher tax rates on high-income and wealthy people. (I reviewed his book here.) The signers criticized free markets in general and Milei in particular.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
econlib.org | David Henderson |Kevin Corcoran
In a recent Defining Ideas article, “Why Trade Should Be Free,” I made the case for free trade. Although my way of stating it is slightly original, the case for free trade is one that many economists, including Adam Smith, have made. Free trade causes people in the free trade country to produce the goods and services for which they are the least-cost producer and to import goods and services for which people in other countries are the least-cost producers.
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Nov 14, 2024 | 
hoover.org | David Henderson
Thomas Gale Moore, a longtime Hoover Institution fellow and a longtime friend, died on August 23 at age ninety-three. Tom was a first-rate economist who did much of the important early work that led to deregulation of trucking. I learned so much from that work. Just as important, I learned from Tom, relatively early in my career, the range of things economists could do besides publishing in academic journals that, typically, few people read.
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Oct 30, 2024 | 
econlib.org | David Henderson |Kevin Corcoran |Scott Sumner
In the section above, I stated that people often think that “there’s a special problem when we buy from people in other countries.” In a sense, that’s true. If you buy a low-end toaster, chances are that it’s made in China. Buying one from China means that you’re not buying one made anywhere else, including in America. So, Americans who might have produced toasters here, admittedly at a much higher cost, don’t get those jobs. But there are three important responses to that point.
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Oct 30, 2024 | 
hoover.org | David Henderson
One of the gloomier items in the current presidential election is the extent to which both major candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, oppose free trade and favor tariffs. Trump is much more extreme. He advocates a 60 percent tariff rate on goods from China and a 10 to 20 percent rate on goods from other countries. Harris wants selective tariffs to steer the US economy in directions that she and her advisers think are good.
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
hoover.org | David Henderson
Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have said during their campaigns for president that they want to bring down costs for consumers. It’s an admirable goal and, if done right, can be achieved. Unfortunately, both have been sparse on details about how to do so. In his September 6 speech to the Economic Club of New York, Trump engaged in a lot of exaggeration and bluster, but didn’t give details.
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Aug 22, 2024 | 
hoover.org | David Henderson
The economic proposals of both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris present a target-rich environment. In many ways, they ignore sound economic thinking. In one short article, I can’t deal with all of both candidates’ proposals and thinking on economics. In this article, I’ll focus on taxes and spending where, it’s fair to say, Harris is substantially worse. Unfortunately, although Trump is better, he’s not good.
