Independent: 429 books
The Midas Paradox
Financial Markets, Government Policy Shocks, and the Great Depression
Language: English
Release Date: December 1, 2015
In The Midas Paradox Scott Sumner provides a fresh, new narrative in regards to the Great Depression and its economic backstory. He points to various ways in which the modern day understanding of the Great Depression is flawed and how the causality of it has been largely misunderstood. The understanding...
Financing Failure
A Century of Bailouts
Language: English
Release Date: January 10, 2012
Probably no issue during the most recent financial crisis aroused more passion than financial institution bailouts. Focusing on the policymaking behind the decisions to bail out these institutions—not just during the most recent crisis, but also throughout history—this account argues that the...
Antitrust and Monopoly
Anatomy of a Policy Failure
Language: English
Release Date: January 1, 1996
The stated purpose of antitrust laws is to protect competition and the public interest. But do such laws actually restrict the competitive process, harming consumers and serving the special interests of a few politically-connected competitors? Is antitrust law a necessary defense against the predatory...
Fire & Smoke
Government, Lawsuits, and the Rule of Law
Language: English
Release Date: June 1, 2000
The state of Mississippi’s lawsuit against tobacco companies in 1994 was quickly emulated by more than a dozen other states and then the federal government. Not to be outdone, more than a dozen cities and the federal government have followed the city of New Orleans’s lead and sued gun manufacturers....
by Phil Angelides, Bill Thomas
Language: English
Release Date: April 18, 2011
Language: English
Release Date: April 18, 2011
In the wake of the most significant financial crisis since the Great Depression, the President signed into law on May 20, 2009, the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009, creating the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The Commission was established to "examine the causes, domestic and...
Risky Business
Insurance Markets and Regulation
Language: English
Release Date: February 1, 2013
Today’s insurance regulation in the United States is at a crossroads: while some segments of the insurance industry are moving away from a state-based approach toward regulation, others favor a greater role for the federal government—despite the opposition from other stakeholders. Written by leading...
Beyond Politics
The Roots of Government Failure
Language: English
Release Date: September 1, 2011
Providing students of economics, politics, and policy with a concise explanation of public choice, markets, property, and political and economic processes, this record identifies what kinds of actions are beyond the ability of government. Combining public choice with studies of the value of property...
School Choices
True and False
Language: English
Release Date: September 1, 2002
The school choice movement has gained political momentum in recent years, having established programs in Milwaukee, Florida, Texas, and elsewhere. Yet, as economist John Merrifield argues in this detailed analysis, today's school choice programs are nothing like the “free market in education”...
Can Teachers Own Their Own Schools?
New Strategies for Educational Excellence
Language: English
Release Date: July 1, 2000
Despite more than 15 years of effort, it is widely acknowledged that internal reform of the public schools has produced little, if any, success. This has led to renewed interest in alternative forms of educational delivery to devolve decision-making through charter schools, public and private voucher...
Winners, Losers & Microsoft
Competition and Antitrust in High Technology
Language: English
Release Date: March 1, 2001
Few issues in high technology are as divisive as the current debate over competition, innovation, and antitrust. Analyzing famous examples of economic “lock-in” by dominant corporations of supposedly inferior products, this book makes the case that free markets in high technology industry deliver...
Hazardous to Our Health?
FDA Regulation of Health Care Products
Language: English
Release Date: June 20, 2016
Some have described the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a scientific bureaucracy with police powers. Does a “cult of infallibility” exist within the FDA, leading to decisions that are contrary to the best interests of patients and their physicians?The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is...
Failure
The Federal Miseducation of America's Children
Language: English
Release Date: July 1, 2016
For nearly 100 years the federal government left education almost entirely in the hands of the citizenry and state and local governments. But in 1979, with the creation of the US Department of Education, a sprawling bureaucracy with 153 programs, 5,000 employees, and an annual budget of approximately...
A Poverty of Reason
Sustainable Development and Economic Growth
Language: English
Release Date: September 1, 2002
In this detailed economic investigation of sustainable development, a noted professor of economics argues that many of the alarms commonly sounded by environmentalists are, in fact, unfounded, and that current sustainable development policies should be reconsidered in light of their effects on the...
by
Language: English
Release Date: July 15, 2005
Language: English
Release Date: July 15, 2005
Environmental quality has been a major public concern since the first Earth Day in 1970, yet the maze of environmental laws and regulations enacted since then has fostered huge government bureaucracies better known for waste and failure than for innovation and success.
Can we do better than...