The Curious Task of Redistributive Taxes: Inheritance and Corporate Taxes

Frederich Hayek famously said “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” Professor Mario Muzzi, economics professor and department chair at the University of San Francisco, recites this quote from memory. In other words, his message is that the intended outcome […]

The Recession of the Pink Tide

Empty shelves in Venezuela Lenin Moreno’s April victory in the Ecuadorian presidential election must have brought sighs of relief to socialists across the continent, who have been buffeted by scandals and electoral defeats in recent years. Still, it was a close fight. Guillermo Lasso, the conservative candidate and a former banker, was able to win […]

China’s 1%: The Rich Chinese Kids of Instagram

Coco the Alaskan malamute poses with her eight new iPhone 7s. For the past two decades, China’s growth has shot upwards at a dizzying speed. Under the revolutionary leader Deng Xiaoping, the traditionally Communist and centrally-planned country executed successful economic reforms in record time. The successive regimes of Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and now Xi […]

Singapore’s Challenge to Democracy

Henry Kissinger, the great American statesman of the 70’s, once wrote, “One of the asymmetries of history, is the lack of correspondence between the abilities of some leaders and the power of their countries.” But whom was Kissinger bestowing this rather grandiose compliment to? It was Lee Kuan Yew, a close confidant and friend of […]

e-Estonia: A Model for Success

At the outset of World War II, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin approved the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the famous non-aggression pact that divided Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. The treaty was predicated on the assumption that the two great powers would achieve preeminence on the European continent, and following the war, the Soviet […]