Benjamin Zycher
Business & Economics
Costs and Consequences: Rate-of-Return Biases, Rate Suppression, and Market Incentives for Quality in Property/Casualty Insurance Regulation
The imposition of legal and regulatory constraints on market pricesprice controls, or rate suppression in the case of the property/casualty insurance marketis an important tool with which public officials can effect wealth transfers among groups and economic sectors. Rate suppression can take the form of allowed rates too low to ...
Commentary
California’s Prop 23: The Anti-Job Killer
If approved by the California electorate in two weeks, Proposition 23 would suspend the implementation of the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (“AB32”) until the state unemployment rate declines to 5.5% or less for four consecutive quarters. AB32 mandates a reduction in California greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 ...
Commentary
To spur job growth in California, we can start by passing Prop. 23
Proposition 23 would suspend the implementation of the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32) until the state unemployment rate, now 12.4 percent, declines to 5.5 percent for four straight quarters. A new study by the Pacific Research Institute examines the employment implications of that initiative, finding that ...
Commentary
California: the make-believe state
“If I am elected, the bald will grow thick hair.” Alas, I am not a candidate for anything, and so the bald will have to continue their suffering in silence. And, frankly, were I campaigning for a position of public trust, I would lose badly, for reasons entirely separate from ...
Commentary
Employment Gains Expected if Prop 23 Passes
The California electorate next month will vote on Proposition 23, which would suspend the implementation of the state’s global warming (i.e., energy taxation) law (“AB32″) until the unemployment rate reaches 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters. My new paper on the employment effects of this initiative can be found here ...
Business & Economics
The Prospective Effects of Proposition 23 on Employment in California
Suspension of AB 32 Would Add 150,000 Jobs in California in 2011 and More than 500,000 in 2012, According to New Study San Francisco A new study by the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in San Francisco, finds that the approval of Proposition 23, suspending the implementation ...
Business & Economics
Oil Producers’ Liability Should Not Be Unlimited
Everyone loves a villain. And with the Deepwater Horizon disaster at the two-month mark, the love knows no bounds, uniting much of the political-media complex in a sticky goo of opportunism, finger-pointing and phony demands for apologies. That BP–having schmoozed the environmental left for years while compiling a dreadful safety ...
Business & Economics
Arnold, for once, is right
From fiscal failure to green destructiveness to an utter lack of courage when it would have mattered most, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure in office has not been an exercise in analytic rigor. But on one proposal – the sale and leaseback of 11 state office buildings – Arnold is correct, ...
Business & Economics
No sunny outlook for Florida’s insurance market
The sun doesn’t always shine in the Sunshine State. But for many career public officials, maybe the sun will come out tomorrow, and every day until the next election; and after that, the weather will be someone else’s problem. That mindset explains the willingness of Gov. Charlie Crist to veto ...
Health Care
Tommy Thompson and the Saga of Cipro
At the request of the Centers for Disease Control, Bayer, the developer/patent owner of Cipro (ciprofloxacin, the antibiotic most effective against anthrax), secured a label indication for anthrax. It did so at its own expense. Bayer then donated 4 million doses to the government, which sought to purchase another 1 ...
Costs and Consequences: Rate-of-Return Biases, Rate Suppression, and Market Incentives for Quality in Property/Casualty Insurance Regulation
The imposition of legal and regulatory constraints on market pricesprice controls, or rate suppression in the case of the property/casualty insurance marketis an important tool with which public officials can effect wealth transfers among groups and economic sectors. Rate suppression can take the form of allowed rates too low to ...
California’s Prop 23: The Anti-Job Killer
If approved by the California electorate in two weeks, Proposition 23 would suspend the implementation of the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (“AB32”) until the state unemployment rate declines to 5.5% or less for four consecutive quarters. AB32 mandates a reduction in California greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 ...
To spur job growth in California, we can start by passing Prop. 23
Proposition 23 would suspend the implementation of the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32) until the state unemployment rate, now 12.4 percent, declines to 5.5 percent for four straight quarters. A new study by the Pacific Research Institute examines the employment implications of that initiative, finding that ...
California: the make-believe state
“If I am elected, the bald will grow thick hair.” Alas, I am not a candidate for anything, and so the bald will have to continue their suffering in silence. And, frankly, were I campaigning for a position of public trust, I would lose badly, for reasons entirely separate from ...
Employment Gains Expected if Prop 23 Passes
The California electorate next month will vote on Proposition 23, which would suspend the implementation of the state’s global warming (i.e., energy taxation) law (“AB32″) until the unemployment rate reaches 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters. My new paper on the employment effects of this initiative can be found here ...
The Prospective Effects of Proposition 23 on Employment in California
Suspension of AB 32 Would Add 150,000 Jobs in California in 2011 and More than 500,000 in 2012, According to New Study San Francisco A new study by the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in San Francisco, finds that the approval of Proposition 23, suspending the implementation ...
Oil Producers’ Liability Should Not Be Unlimited
Everyone loves a villain. And with the Deepwater Horizon disaster at the two-month mark, the love knows no bounds, uniting much of the political-media complex in a sticky goo of opportunism, finger-pointing and phony demands for apologies. That BP–having schmoozed the environmental left for years while compiling a dreadful safety ...
Arnold, for once, is right
From fiscal failure to green destructiveness to an utter lack of courage when it would have mattered most, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure in office has not been an exercise in analytic rigor. But on one proposal – the sale and leaseback of 11 state office buildings – Arnold is correct, ...
No sunny outlook for Florida’s insurance market
The sun doesn’t always shine in the Sunshine State. But for many career public officials, maybe the sun will come out tomorrow, and every day until the next election; and after that, the weather will be someone else’s problem. That mindset explains the willingness of Gov. Charlie Crist to veto ...
Tommy Thompson and the Saga of Cipro
At the request of the Centers for Disease Control, Bayer, the developer/patent owner of Cipro (ciprofloxacin, the antibiotic most effective against anthrax), secured a label indication for anthrax. It did so at its own expense. Bayer then donated 4 million doses to the government, which sought to purchase another 1 ...
