Agriculture
Regulation
Government regulations typically restrict people’s behaviors and choices– causing economic damage, especially to society’s vulnerable who can least afford to comply. Locke works to deregulate and support innovation and growth.
Research Brief
Regulation
Three Things Zoning Does in North Carolina
North Carolina’s urban counties are growing quickly, as is demand for new housing. Zoning restrictions regulate property markets and artificially restrict the supply of new housing in our cities where…
Regulation
Licensing for low-income occupations has gotten more expensive and restrictive in North Carolina
The Institute for Justice (IJ) has released an update of its stellar “License to Work” report, which examines the burdens of occupational licensing regulations across the country. It’s the first…
Health Care
Blaming the Unvaccinated for Vaccine Side Effects?
A newly published journal article available from the U.S. National Institute of Health’s PubMed Central (PMC) repository offers — to put it mildly — a novel reason for the averred…
Energy
Biden Takes George III’s Imperial Approach to Regulation
Along with being one of the greatest documents for human liberty ever created, the Declaration of Independence provided an extensive list of how King George III had abused and usurped…
Liberty
Saluting the Sensible
There was a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the proper societal response to Covid-19. Governments’ reactions to it didn’t help, as I discussed in previous posts. They were dictatorial and marked by shocking,…
Liberty
Were Covid Dissenters Just Lucky?
My previous post discussed a critical omission from Emily Oster’s wish for a Covid “amnesty”: there’s no repentance, not even an apology. Oster wrote that those who got it right “had…
Liberty
If You Want a Covid “Amnesty,” Then Repent of Totalitarianism
My latest piece for the American Institute for Economic Research discusses a critical shortcoming in Emily Oster’s October 31 essay in The Atlantic calling for a “pandemic amnesty.” Covid bullies…
Research Brief
Environment
Sorry, California, Governor Cooper Has No Authority to Order a “Clean Trucks” Rule
Gov. Roy Cooper signed an “Memorandum of Understanding” with California Gov. Gavin Newsom to promote “zero-emissions” trucks and buses. Cooper’s recent executive order demands the drafting of an “Advanced Clean…
Regulation
North Carolina’s Outdated Alcohol Restrictions
A few years ago I charted several ways in which the state was more restrictive against alcohol production, distribution, and sales than other states. The good news is that the…
Research Brief
Agriculture
Can California Hog the Regulation of North Carolina Pig Farms?
The Supreme Court is mulling whether to allow California, which has virtually no domestic pork industry, to regulate other states’ pig farms. If farms are forced to adopt California’s strictures,…
Energy
Fear Congressional Regulation, Not the Speech
On September 14, 2022, Locke CEO Amy Cooke testified before U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations regarding the importance of free and open debate in…
Freedom Focus
Budget, Taxation & Economy
Big government crushes wealth creation, harms the poor
Increasing productivity is the key to wealth creation. Investment in capital goods and the division of labor are the key factors to rising productivity. Government hampers productivity through interventions like…