Regulatory accumulation – the relentless layering of new rules atop old ones over decades – can smother economic innovation and investment. Continuously improving the regulatory environment for entrepreneurship and growth is integral to progressive efforts to make government work better.
Net neutrality is the basic idea that all internet traffic must be treated equally on the network and no company should be able to block or throttle online traffic in order to gain a competitive leg-up. This is a pro-competitive, prophylactic policy to ensure internet providers don’t unfairly become gatekeepers for online services. It’s a […]
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) today released a national opinion survey that highlights the surprising resilience of America’s pragmatic political center two years into Donald Trump’s deeply polarizing presidency. The poll reinforces a key takeaway from the 2018 midterm elections: Suburban voters – especially women – are repelled by the president’s racial and cultural demagoguery […]
Americans justifiably have long taken great pride in the unmatched ability of the U.S. economy to enable entrepreneurs to launch and grow highly innovative companies that drive growth and advance living standards. Bold entrepreneurs and the companies they founded brought us modern communications, airplanes, automobiles, computer software and hardware, and electricity and other forms of […]
Dear Democratic Class of 2018, Congratulations on your election to the U.S. House of Representatives! In addition to winning your own race, you are part of something larger – the first wave of a progressive resurgence in U.S. politics. The midterm elections gave U.S. voters their first opportunity to react to the way Donald Trump […]
They’re a tempting alternative to raising taxes, but their long-term costs far outweigh the revenue they bring in. Raising taxes is painful. That may be why, since 2010, 47 states and a number of cities have instead raised both civil and criminal fines and fees. These increases are often viewed as a conflict-free way to […]
As President Trump and Republicans go full throttle to ram a partisan tax bill through Congress this week, let’s step back and ask a basic question: What does the U.S. economy need most today? The answer isn’t tax cuts – it’s public investment in modern infrastructure. Having wasted most of 2017 trying to kill ObamaCare, […]
The FTC recently asked for comments on “Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century.” PPI submitted two excerpts from a forthcoming paper, “Taking Competition Policy Seriously: Macro Indicators for Regulators.” Here is a summary of the first excerpt, the introduction: Recent work has linked increased concentration to poor macroeconomic outcomes. In this spirit, this […]
PPI has repeatedly made the economic case that accelerating the deployment of 5G is essential for boosting growth. For example, in a 2016 report, we estimated that next generation wireless could add 0.7 percentage points annually to economic growth.* Moreover, as we noted in a January 2018 report, 5G networks can play a key role […]
We think of the United States as a low-inflation economy, with an overall price increase of 36% since 2000, or less than 2% a year. But the fact is, the inflation performance of different industries has varied greatly since 2000. For example, the price of construction has gone up more than 100% since 2000, as […]
