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4 weeks ago | 
cato.org | Ryan Bourne |Sophia Bagley
Credit card interest caps, Hungary for more, Sellers’ Inflation March 27, 2025 • Commentary This article appeared in The War on Prices on March 27, 2025. The Economic Consequences of Credit Card Interest Rate CapsOn March 7, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Anna Paulina Luna introduced a bill to cap credit card interest rates at 10 percent. Bernie Sanders and Josh Hawley are backing a Senate version. Strange bedfellows, same bad idea.
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1 month ago | 
cato.org | Ryan Bourne |Sophia Bagley
Critics and many federally-funded disability charities argue that subminimum wage employment is exploitative. That is the motivation behind abolishing the carve out. They seem to have in mind workers with marginal disabilities who might otherwise work in the formal labor market at the federal minimum wage.
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1 month ago | 
cato.org | Ryan Bourne |Sophia Bagley
Even if Bezos’ move was a cynical one to curry favor with the President amid today’s vibe shift, just presuming this is the case seems…premature. February 28, 2025 • Commentary This article appeared in The War on Prices on February 28, 2025.
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Jan 10, 2025 | 
cato.org | Sophia Bagley
California’s wildfire crisis isn’t just a natural disaster; it’s also a policy failure. In recent years, state price control regulations have driven private home insurance providers like State Farm and Allstate out of offering new products in the state and led to the nonrenewal of thousands of existing home insurance policies.
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Jan 10, 2025 | 
cato.org | Sophia Bagley |Ryan Bourne
Even if overall employment doesn’t drop when a wage floor is raised, those lowest-skilled may still face significant harm, getting edged out by more experienced employees. January 10, 2025 • Commentary This article appeared in The War on Prices on January 10, 2025. This year kicks off with minimum wage hikes across 21 states.
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Jan 10, 2025 | 
ryanbourne.substack.com | Sophia Bagley
This year kicks off with minimum wage hikes across 21 states. Economists have long documented that while minimum wage increases often boost wages for those who remain employed, there are no free lunches. Extensive research shows minimum wage increases to high levels tend to hurt new and low-skilled workers as businesses respond by cutting hours or hiring opportunities.
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Nov 25, 2024 | 
cato.org | Sophia Bagley
First, the good news. California rejected the opportunity to extend rent control. Proposition 33 asked voters to choose to remove statewide restrictions on the scope of local rent cap laws. Had it passed, Prop 33 could have seen localities expand rent control to all rental properties built after 1995, including single-family homes and condos that are currently exempt, and even allowed them to control rents between tenancies–potentially affecting millions of properties.
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Oct 31, 2024 | 
cato.org | Ryan Bourne |Sophia Bagley
How and why both presidential candidates declared a war on market prices during this election campaign. October 31, 2024 • Commentary This article appeared on The War on Prices on October 31, 2024.
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Oct 11, 2024 | 
cato.org | Ryan Bourne |Sophia Bagley
The economics to explain why is fairly simple. A rent control that holds the rental price of properties below market rates will produce an excess demand at the restrained price — a “housing shortage.” That’s because the lower price encourages landlords to take their rental units off the market and sell them for owner occupation, live in them, or put them on AirBnB, while the lower mandated price encourages more would-be tenants to seek rental properties.
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Oct 9, 2024 | 
cato.org | Ryan Bourne |Sophia Bagley
Does it really need to be said? September 18, 2024 • Commentary This article appeared in The War on Prices on September 6, 2024. I didn’t think the policy ideas to combat high living costs could get much worse than Kamala Harris’s recent embrace of price controls. Then yesterday former President Trump was asked in Flint, Michigan, “How are you going to bring down the cost of food and groceries?” His answer was astounding.
