Are we harming public health in the name of environmental protection? Is the theoretical model that drives the regulation of carcinogens and radiation not only flawed, but fundamentally wrong? For over a half-century, this regulation has been based largely on a linear response to pollutants, often with a threshold of a single molecule or a single photon. Voluminous research now shows this paradigm is often wrong. Rather than being harmed by small doses of many regulated compounds, health is ofte...
Jan 28, 2014•34 min
In his new book, Tim Harford attempts to demystify macroeconomics in the same way his earlier bestseller, The Undercover Economist , demystified microeconomics. Using his characteristic conversational style, Harford will discuss abstract macroeconomic ideas, explaining the most common models of recessions and the difficulty of discriminating between them on empirical grounds. For example, was the crisis of 2008 driven by supply- or demand-side factors? And why do failures of the financial sector...
Jan 23, 2014•1 hr 22 min
In his first book of all new, previously unpublished material since 2007, best-selling humorist P. J. O’Rourke turns his lens on his fellow post-war babies. In The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way … And It Wasn’t My Fault … And I’ll Never Do It Again , O’Rourke draws on his own experiences and leads readers on a candid, laugh-out-loud journey through the circumstances and events that shaped a generation. “We’re often silly, and we’re spoiled by any measure of history,” writes O’Rourke. “At the sam...
Jan 22, 2014•51 min
In recent years, controversy has arisen over perceived conflicts between intellectual property protection and public health, and also over the role of international investment rules that allow corporations to sue governments before international tribunals. A new case combines both issues. Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has filed a claim before a NAFTA tribunal, alleging that Canadian court decisions in response to challenges from the Canadian generic drug industry have unfairly invalidated som...
Jan 16, 2014•1 hr 25 min
On Monday, January 13, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in an important separation-of-powers case concerning the president’s recess appointments power. Under the Constitution the president may “fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate” without going through the normal requirements of obtaining the “advice and consent” of the Senate. On January 4, 2012, when the Senate was arguably not in recess, President Obama appointed three members to fill vacant seats on...
Jan 10, 2014•1 hr 27 min
With American education seemingly stuck in neutral no matter what elementary and secondary reforms we try, policymakers are looking to younger children to improve achievement. Indeed, touting the benefits of “high-quality” programs, President Obama has proposed spending $75 billion to expand preschool to all four-year olds. But on what research basis does the argument for greatly expanding early childhood education rest? What do we know about the effectiveness of preschool? Please join us for an...
Jan 07, 2014•1 hr 23 min
In his latest book, a wide-ranging tome covering vast areas of our law, Richard Epstein mounts a principled attack on modern Supreme Court jurisprudence and much of the legal scholarship that has grown up around it. The major disarray that infects every area of modern American life, he argues, from deficits and debt to health care, financial services, declining standards of living and more, could not have happened under the original constitutional structure, faithfully interpreted in light of ch...
Dec 12, 2013•1 hr 32 min
In 2001, Argentina defaulted on $81 billion of debt — the largest sovereign default in history. While years later most of its creditors settled to swap their old bonds with heavily discounted new bonds, a group of holdout creditors challenged Argentina in the courts. In October 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sided with plaintiffs to rule that Argentina must treat all its creditors equally and pay owners of defaulted bonds that were issued under New York law. As the long s...
Dec 11, 2013•1 hr 29 min
Americans have been stunned by revelations that the National Security Agency is collecting vast troves of information about ordinary citizens. But the NSA is only part of the surveillance story.Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, state and local police have formed data “fusion centers” across the country and partnered with the federal intelligence community to share a wide array of personal information in an effort to detect and prevent terrorism. New research, however, finds that this syst...
Dec 11, 2013•1 hr 30 min
George Gilder is the living author who was most quoted in President Reagan’s speeches. His books Wealth and Poverty (1981), Microcosm (1989), and Telecosm (2000) had a big impact on the way people looked at economics and technology. Now he’s back with a new analysis of capitalism that just might do the same thing. In Knowledge and Power , Gilder breaks away from the supply-side model of economics to present a new economic paradigm: the epic conflict between the knowledge of entrepreneurs on one ...
Dec 05, 2013•1 hr 23 min
Purchase Book In a process that began some 250 years ago, most of humanity has managed a great escape from grinding poverty and early death that characterized its existence for thousands of years. Professor Angus Deaton will describe the dramatic scope and speed of that progress, why we are living longer, healthier lives, and how progress has created inequalities that can have positive or negative impacts. He will also discuss measures rich countries can take to help the world’s poor, including ...
Dec 03, 2013•1 hr 21 min
The United States maintains nearly 1,600 deployed nuclear weapons and a triad of systems — bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) — to deliver them. Current plans call for modernizing all three legs of the nuclear triad, which could cost taxpayers over $100 billion. A just-released Cato paper explains why a triad is no longer necessary. U.S. nuclear weapons policies have long rested on Cold War–era myths, and the rationales have ag...
Nov 25, 2013•38 min
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Nov 14, 2013•49 min
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Nov 14, 2013•1 hr 1 min
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Nov 14, 2013•1 hr 16 min
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Nov 14, 2013•40 min
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Nov 14, 2013•1 hr 13 min
In the 12 years since the creation of the TSA it has become clear that the federal takeover of airport security was a mistake. Cato scholar Chris Edwards writes in an upcoming paper that TSA operations should be privatized and passenger and baggage screening "moved to the control of airports and opened to competitive bidding." In a recent New York Times article, EPIC administrative law counsel Khaliah Barnes highlighted that the TSA deploys Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) squad...
Nov 14, 2013•47 min
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Nov 14, 2013•1 hr 11 min
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Nov 14, 2013•44 min
For many fields of science, there is little doubt that the period 1830-1965 was a golden age. There is also little doubt that changes in the support structure for science since the late 60's have powerful elements that serve to inhibit major developments. Dr. Lindzen will discuss these changes from the personal perspective of a climate scientist, and place them in the historical perspective of other areas of study. Quantification of the effects of the support structure is complicated. There are ...
Nov 13, 2013•1 hr 22 min
In many fields of science, there is little doubt that the period 1830-1965 was a golden age. There is also little doubt that changes in the support structure for science since the late 60s have powerful unintended consequences that serve to inhibit major developments. Richard Lindzen will discuss these changes from the personal perspective of a climate scientist and place them in the historical perspective of other areas of study. Specifically, Lindzen will explore how the symbiotic relationship...
Nov 13, 2013•41 min
What is the extent of improvements in human well-being and what challenges lie ahead? That will be the topic of conversation between two distinguished journalists, Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post and Ronald Bailey of Reason magazine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 30, 2013•1 hr 11 min
Robert Zoellick will discuss the importance of Open Data and HumanProgress.org as a research tool in economic development and human progress. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 30, 2013•49 min
Please join us as Marian L. Tupy and Marc Garrett introduce HumanProgress.org—a comprehensive new research tool that will allow users to: Explore human development indicators from a variety of sources Compare different indicators with one another Create and share graphics in a visually compelling way Calculate differences in human well-being between different countries over time Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 30, 2013•31 min
The sluggish recovery from the Great Recession raises a troubling question: is this the new normal? Tyler Cowen launched an ongoing debate of that question with The Great Stagnation , in which he argued that the "low-hanging fruit" of growth has already been picked. In a new Cato paper entitled " Why Growth Is Getting Harder ," Brink Lindsey offers an analysis that differs from Cowen's but shares his conclusion that slow growth will be hard to avoid in the coming years. Martin Baily, one of the ...
Oct 29, 2013•1 hr 12 min
To what extent does disorder threaten the global economic system, and must the United States prevent piracy, international crime, and general lawlessness in order to maintain our relative prosperity? Does uncertain access to sources of energy pose a threat to U.S. and global prosperity? The leading advocates of U.S. global primacy contend that trade has expanded because the United States provides a global public good of security within the commons, and that such trade would slow or contract if t...
Oct 25, 2013•1 hr 37 min
Beyond traditional threats to security such as wars and terrorism, fears have arisen in response to supposed new, but less visible, dangers. These include cybersecurity and cyberwar, potential problems derived from climate change, and issues of uncertainty, economic stagnation, and complexity. How do we assess these purported threats? Should we fear general instability and anarchy, which are persistent features of the international system? Can we do anything about them? Hosted on Acast. See acas...
Oct 25, 2013•1 hr 29 min
With a lack of credible state rivals since the end of the Cold War, security studies scholars and policy analysts in the United States have increasingly turned their attention to sub-state threats: insurgents, terrorists, criminal networks, and increasingly civil war, or the absence of authority itself. What have we learned of late about the sort of danger these troubles pose to the United States itself? To what extent should we fix, manage, or live with the lack of authority that lets these pro...
Oct 25, 2013•1 hr 32 min
Historically, states have posed the greatest threats to international security, especially through wars that have caused massive death and destruction. Is that still the case? What sort of security threat does China’s growing power pose to the United States? Another fear is that of nuclear weapons “cascades,” or a “tipping point” beyond which a large number of states will acquire nuclear weapons. Is such a cascade likely? What danger would such a scenario pose to Americans? And finally, American...
Oct 25, 2013•1 hr 42 min
