Tag: economic freedom

Is It Better to Be Rich in a Poor and Unfree Country?

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May 17, Robert Lawson, director of the Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom at the SMU Dallas Cox School of Business, for an essay about how average people are more likely to prosper in counties that are more free and less regulated. Published in Inside Sources under the heading Is It Better to Be Rich in a Poor and Unfree Country?: https://tinyurl.com/mtbv3duf

Like many economics professors, I frequently get emails from a variety of cranks and conspiracy theorists. Occasionally, I get an interesting email question about my research on economic freedom. It’s complicated, but in a nutshell, my work generally shows that countries with more economic freedom (i.e., lower taxes, stronger private property rights, less inflation, freer trade and fewer regulations) perform better on most, if not all, measures of socio-economic progress.

Recently, an email correspondent who lives in Hong Kong asked: How can Hong Kong and Singapore, the countries with the highest economic freedom in the world, also be two places that are “so expensive that you won’t have sufficient funds to have personal financial freedom?” He continued, “I am wondering how we, as people who love free-market capitalism, can reconcile this? How can the ‘best’ (most capitalist) countries in the world also be some of the most difficult to get by in?”

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The herd heads for Texas; is economic freedom why?

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March 29, Robert Lawson, the Jerome M. Fullinwider Chair in Economic Freedom and director of the Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom in the Cox School of Business at SMU Dallas, for a piece that supports a premise that domestic in-migration to Texas is most often coming from highly taxed and regulated states like California and New York. Published in the Austin American-Statesman under the heading: The herd heads for Texas; is economic freedom why? https://tinyurl.com/4hbswhcw

I just checked the U-Haul website to see how much it would cost to rent a small truck one way from Dallas to San Francisco: $1,462 was the price. Not bad. Next, I wondered what the price would be if I was going from San Francisco to Dallas. U-Haul will rent me a truck one way from San Francisco to Dallas for a whopping $2,599 — that’s 77% more expensive than in the other direction. This can’t be because of wear and tear on the truck, the distance, 1,732 miles, is the same. Other city pairs I checked show the same pattern. For instance, the rental price from Dallas to New York City is $1,130, but from New York City to Dallas is 89% higher, $2,138.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has more than once taken to Twitter to claim these truck rental price differentials show that, “The nation could stand to learn a thing or two from the way we do things in Texas!” Sen. Cruz no doubt believes California is pushing people out due to its higher taxes with more costly regulations compared to states like Texas, and these price differentials are all the evidence he needs to prove his point. Now, I have nothing against Sen. Cruz, but I’ve noticed politicians have a way of cherry-picking data to fit their political points. As an academic economist, I’m trained to get large samples of data to see if the patterns we see in the “big data” conform with our anecdotal evidence.

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COVID’s hidden victim: economic freedom

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Sept. 8, Robert Lawson, Fullinwider Chair in Economic Freedom at the SMU  Dallas Cox School of Business, for a piece measuring the impact of the pandemic on  economic freedom indicators. Published in the Orange County Register under the heading COVID’s hidden victim: economic freedom: https://bit.ly/3qmJooL

The COVID-19 pandemic swept over the planet in early 2020, resulting in more than a million deaths in the United States and many millions more around the world. Unfortunately, these lives weren’t the only casualties. The pandemic also walloped economic freedom – that is, our freedoms to buy, sell, move, hire, fire, invest and earn income and keep it.

Economic freedom took a big hit in the global financial crisis of 2007-09 – but this time the blow was three times worse. The potential impacts of economic freedom’s decline range from lower incomes and greater poverty to shorter life expectancies, fewer years of schooling, and less overall happiness.

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Here’s to hoping Joe Biden remembers his ‘you can’t eat equality’ line

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Jan 18, Robert Lawson, who directs the Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom in the Cox School of Business at SMU Dallas, for a piece reminding incoming President Joe Biden that he once said: “You can’t eat equality.” Published in the Orange County Register and affiliates of the Southern California News Group with the heading Here’s to hoping Joe Biden remembers his ‘you can’t eat equality’ line: http://bit.ly/392fmPv

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Hillary Clinton’s defeat by Donald Trump in 2016 generated a lot of soul searching among Democrats confused about how they could lose to such a loathsome creature. Predictably, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the growing left-wing of the party called for more efforts to fight inequality, social injustice, racism, globalism, and whatever other –ism of the day motivates their always-outraged, activist followers on any given day.

Clinton seemed content to put on her tin-foil hat blaming the nefarious forces of Russian Facebook bots instead of her own lackluster campaign. Meanwhile, among the Democrats, only Joe Biden seemed to get it. The then-vice president correctly diagnosed the problem to be that the Democrats had run too far to the left blaming racism, sexism, and inequality for every problem in America and had lost touch with the party’s traditional jobs and opportunity message. At one point he quipped, “you can’t eat equality. You know?”

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