Regulating cyber-commerce is controversial. The advent of smart phones and web-based interfaces has facilitated many new consumer services. Customers using these digital platforms often insist that existing regulatory models are outmoded and simply shouldn’t apply to new technologies. As do the…

Conservative pundits hyperventilate over Donald Trump. Before I wade into the overwrought debate over the prospective 2016 Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, allow me several caveats. First, like many conservatives, I supported a candidate other than Trump during the primary season (w…

Ever since people began migrating in large numbers from America’s rural areas to its urban areas in the 19th century, cities have presented unique challenges: sanitation, housing, transportation, education, public safety, and fire protection, to name just a few. Responding to these challenges …

The traditional—or at least doctrinaire—response of conservatives and libertarians to the phenomenon of income inequality has been, “So what?” The common attitude of many on the Right is that, in a free-market economy, individual differences in ability, skill, and effort will lead to ineq…

You wouldn’t think a Hawaiian vacation would offer a Texan lessons about economic change, comparative advantage, and creative destruction—but my trip to Maui did. Of course, my wife and I may have been in relaxation mode, but we still tuned in to the Republican primary debates. (We both take …

Who is “really” responsible for this once-proud city’s awful predicament? For the past few weeks, liberals have sought to blame Republican governor Rick Snyder for the lead contamination plaguing Flint, Michigan’s municipal water supply. In office since 2011, Snyder has publicly expressed…