All Posts Tagged With: "zoning laws"

Politicians Smother Cities

I like my hometown, but I must admit that New York has problems: high taxes, noise, traffic. Forbes magazine ranks my city the 16th most miserable in America. Ouch! Of course, that makes me wonder: What’s America’s most miserable city? Cleveland, says Forbes. People call it “the Mistake by the Lake.” Cleveland, once America’s sixth-largest [...]

29Jun2010 | John Stossel | 6 comments | Continued

The Economics of Property Rights

Property rights play a critical role in a wide range of economic institutions. From understanding why owners are generally better stewards of property than renters to finding ways to resolve environmental problems, property rights are at the center of the analysis. It is unsurprising, therefore, that economics offers important insights into property rights. The economic [...]

1Mar2007 | Andrew P. Morriss | 22 comments | Continued

Private Neighborhoods and the Transformation of Local Government

By Robert H. Nelson Reviewed by Sandy Ikeda

1Jan2007 | Sandy Ikeda | 1 comment | Continued

A Sparks Sampler

Editor’s Note: John C. Sparks, who died on March 27, 2005, served on the board of trustees of the Foundation for Economic Education for many years. In the mid-1980s, following his retirement from business, he served a term as FEE’s president. In memory of this friend of FEE, we reproduce some of what he wrote [...]

1May2005 | John C. Sparks | 0 comments | Continued

A Tale of Regulation

When we speak of regulation, we often apply the lessons on a macroeconomic scale (“regulation costs the economy X billions of dollars a year”) or examine how it affects a particular industry, like oil. However, regulation is not merely something imposed on the large firms or spread evenly across the economy; it is something that [...]

1Oct2004 | William L. Anderson | 1 comment | Continued

Law and Property: The Best Hope for Liberty?

There is little left of the conventional protections for individualism in the modern world. Whatever theoretical virtues there may be in democracy (and there aren’t many1), in practice it has disintegrated into a struggle among self-regarding interest groups, mediated by government, over wealth that is exclusively created by private individuals.

1Jul2003 | Norman Barry | 1 comment | Continued

Stopping Government Sprawl

Timothy Terrell is an assistant professor of economics at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C. In a scene that is repeated countless times each year in cities all over the world, a local government is preventing a landowner from building a legitimate business on his property. Tom Winkopp, owner of a 50-acre site in Clemson, South [...]

1Feb2001 | Timothy D. Terrell | 1 comment | Continued

The Battle For Diamond Head: A Case of Market Failure?

“Hawaii’s great and beloved landmark . . . is too precious an asset to be sacrificed.” —Honolulu Advertiser editorial (1967) Last month I addressed the theory of entrepreneurial error in conjunction with the year 2000 computer problem. This month I raise another issue dealing with the possibility of market failure: Should government protect a local [...]

1Apr1999 | Mark Skousen | 0 comments | Continued

Shake-Down: How the Government Screws You From A to Z

Dr. Peterson, an adjunct scholar at the Heritage Foundation, is Distinguished Lundy Professor Emeritus of Business Philosophy at Campbell University in North Carolina. Item: A federal program routinely subsidizes welfare families living in oceanfront apartments in upscale La Jolla, California. Item: The Food and Drug Administration refuses to approve a machine that gives CPR to [...]

1Apr1996 | William H. Peterson | 0 comments | Continued

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