Explainers
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The Gold Standard, Explained
This explainer will outline what the gold standard was, how it operated, the benefits and criticisms surrounding it, and how its rise and eventual collapse shaped the global monetary system.
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Understanding Medicaid
This explainer will outline how Medicaid functions, the program’s costs, its influence on healthcare in the United States, and how the proposed policy changes in 2025 could reshape the program.
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How Does the Federal Reserve Set Interest Rates?
Introduction People in financial markets and in the media regularly track Federal Reserve announcements and forecast what the Fed’s interest rate target will be in the future. But when people […]
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Foundations of Economics: It All Starts With Cooperation
It is by understanding the nature of cooperation that one can see how the evolution of all the other foundations of economics, and even the free market economy itself, was driven by the societal benefits from ever more effective cooperation.
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Why Consumption—Not Production—Is the True Goal of Economic Activity
Just as an all-powerful monarch dictates what his subjects may and may not do — and just as no subject has any power to direct or constrain the monarch’s actions — consumers in a competitive market economy ‘command’ producers to do this and that, as well as to avoid doing countless other things.
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What Is the Jones Act—and Can It Be Fixed?
The Jones Act has been a staple of the American political landscape for over one hundred years. It has also created many unintended consequences.
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What the End of the Chevron Doctrine Means
Paul Mueller explains how the regulatory environment and economy changes with the end of the Chevron Doctrine.
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What is Central Bank Independence?
The explainer defines central bank independence, describes its theoretical desirability, and reviews classic and contemporary studies on how central bank independence affects key macroeconomic variables.
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Who Really Sets Tariffs—and How?
In this Explainer, we’ll seek to understand what tariffs are, who gets to set them, and under what conditions.
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The Economic Tradeoffs of Property Tax Reform
How do property taxes work in the United States, and what are their economic consequences?
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How Currency Shapes Global Trade: Exchange Rates, Investment, and Stability
Free trade and free markets promote sound money, as countries compete for business and investment.
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Do the Rich Pay Their Fair Share of Taxes?
Research Fellow Thomas Savidge digs into tax data to answer a frequently echoed question.
