Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? What makes a perfect parent? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? These are questions that Steven D. Levitt asks in his controversial, critically acclaimed book FREAKONOMICS: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Levitt will expand on his book’s inquisitive premise during an address on Tuesday, Sept. 23, at Saint Louis University.
Saint Joseph is considering licensing contractors who work within the city. However, occupational licensing adds costs and decreases competition without improving quality or safety. The free market is best served by competition, not by restricting how somebody can make a living.
In June, Show-Me Institute policy analyst David Stokes submitted this testimony to the Saint Louis County Capital Investment Blue Ribbon Commission, about Saint Louis County's capital investment proposals. He argued that it's necessary to consider the economically harmful aspects of tax increases alongside the infrastructure needs that those increases are proposed to finance.
The urge to help people who have experienced devastation from floods and other disasters is never misguided. However, the expectation of relief spurs more marginal home and business owners to locate in risky areas in the first place. Ultimately, government-subsidized reconstruction sets people up for more long-run damage.
Now that Bombardier has decided to build in Canada rather than Missouri, it’s worth examining whether tax incentives are a worthwhile strategy for economic growth. While legislators certainly had Missouri's best interests at heart, both economic theory and hard data show us that real growth stems from lower tax rates across the board.
The property rights of ordinary Missourians have eroded over the years. The founding principles that established our nation held that individual rights must be protected against the majority. This ideal once guided Missouri’s Supreme Court, as well. Missouri needs to cultivate a renewed respect for the freedoms of all.
Missouri is one of only three states that require a 10-percent minimum ethanol blend (E-10) for retail gasoline sold within the state. The Missouri Corn Merchandising Council (MCMC) recently released a study purporting to demonstrate the positive economic benefits of the state's ethanol mandate for Missouri consumers. The study claimed that Missourians will save more than $285 million through ethanol-induced fuel cost reductions in 2008 and nearly $2 billion in present value during the following decade. The MCMC study ignores important effects of the E-10 mandate, however, most notably the documented decrease in fuel efficiency of E-10 blended fuel and the taxpayer cost of ethanol subsidies. We find that accounting for these costs significantly impacts the MCMC savings projections and would result in a net loss to Missouri consumers of almost $1 billion during the next decade. If one were to consider the additional impact of the E-10 mandate on higher food prices and CO2 gas emissions, these costs would be even higher.
Research shows that judicial independence and legal system quality matter for economic growth, and that a state’s legal system outcomes depend in part on how judges are selected. A comparison of judicial selection methods across states shows that the “Missouri Plan” fares better than alternatives like partisan and nonpartisan elections.
Although Missouri’s Textbook Transparency Act is intended to lower the costs of higher education, the actual provisions of this bill will not achieve that purpose. Informational mandates and regulation of the ways that textbooks can be sold would decrease marginal producer profits, in many cases passing those costs on to students.
A new policy study from the Show-Me Institute examines the varying systems of judicial selection found throughout the United States. Asking the question, “Is the ‘Missouri Plan’ Good for Missouri?” the study considers the state’s method of merit-based selection for Supreme Court judges in comparison both to the similar systems and alternate selection methods used elsewhere.
For 68 years, Missouri has selected its Supreme Court judges through a system of merit selection dubbed the “Missouri Plan.” Today, 26 states use some form of this plan, most having abandoned partisan judicial elections amid concerns about the effects of political pressure on a fair and evenhanded application of the law. Recent debates about this process in Missouri have instigated many proposals for changes. Because judicial independence is critical to a well-functioning legal system, this study will analyze judicial selection and its effect on the quality of courts.
A new online application created by Justin Hauke, a policy analyst with the Show-Me Institute, provides Missouri families with a series of free and useful tools for comparing public schools across the state. Students, parents, school administrators, teachers, legislators, and other citizens now have a resource for better understanding academic performance in Missouri.
Some municipalities in Saint Louis County have filed suit to overturn a state law granting counties more tax increment financing (TIF) authority. However, counties are better positioned than municipalities to make good decisions about the use of TIF, and have a history of using these and other tax incentives more selectively.
Although the economic growth benefits of tax credits are easy to see, it’s harder to see their drawbacks. Looking more carefully at the evidence and applying basic economics shows that lowering tax rates across the board is much more efficient at encouraging growth than singling out a few credit recipients at the expense of everybody else.
Tuition tax credits are the most effective policy solution for parents with autistic children. Insurance mandates wouldn’t provide sufficient coverage for specialized education, and most public schools aren’t set up to treat autism. Tax credits would help all autistic kids without placing excessive burdens on individual school districts.
Tax credits may seem like a great idea to encourage growth by enticing firms to relocate to Missouri, but the reasoning used to support this type of development is almost certainly wrong. The higher marginal tax rates created by targeted credits actually eliminate more jobs than are created by the tax credit beneficiaries.
Counties in Missouri have for decades had the power to levy annual license fees on any public establishment that hosts a pool table. A holdover from earlier times when pool halls were seen as social ills, the tax remains in many areas today. This amounts to an endorsement of some types of recreational activities, and a punishment of others.
The Show-Me Institute has opened a satellite office in Columbia, Mo., allowing it to expand its operations in central Missouri. The close proximity of the Columbia office to the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City will make the Show-Me Institute's studies and other research much more accessible to policymakers and other leaders who want to stay informed about market solutions for Missouri public policy.
Officials who use tax credits as a plan to spur economic development tend to rely on discredited economic models. SB 1234 is one such bill, designed to attract “mega-projects” and spur related job creation. Such tax credits will cost taxpayers millions of dollars, without any reliable way of predicting relevant economic growth.
