Anne O. Krueger

WASHINGTON, DC – The private sector performs well when firms can compete on a level playing field. But if the state is willing to influence market outcomes for individual firms, politically connected parties can gain an advantage over their more efficient competitors

WASHINGTON, DC – Webster’s Dictionary defines “emergency” as “a sudden, urgent, usually unexpected occurrence requiring immediate action.” By that standard, US President Donald Trump’s claim that the United States faces an immigration emergency is simply not credible. Immigrants have been coming to the US since its inception, and since 2007 their net numbers have actually been falling. Because this issue is so often framed in a misleading way, it is important to get the facts straight

WASHINGTON, DC – Imagine a man who has lived too extravagantly and eventually must go to the doctor for treatment of an acute disease, along with several other chronic conditions. The doctor prescribes a ten-day course of antibiotics, and advises his patient to start taking better care of himself. After three days of taking the pills and following the doctor’s orders, the man feels much better. But he finds the quiet life painful, so he forgets the medicine and his doctor’s advice and doubles down on debauchery

WASHINGTON, DC – Decision-making based on evidence rather than superstition was a driving force behind the Industrial Revolution, and the collection of statistics has, accordingly, become a hallmark of the modern age. In the twenty-first century, businesses and governments alike are finding that data are more valuable than ever

BALTIMORE – Puerto Rico is once again in crisis, both politically and economically. A United States territory with more than three million people, it has a larger population than many US states. But its population and real (inflation-adjusted) output have been falling since 2006. More than half of native-born Puerto Ricans alive today have left the island, most of them for the US mainland. The territory’s per capita income is around half that of the poorest US state, Mississippi

WASHINGTON, DC – Late last month, US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on imports from Mexico in ten days if it did not halt the flow of migrants from Central America. The tariffs would start at 5% and then increase by five percentage points monthly until reaching 25% in October. The announcement came as a shock, especially given that the United States and Mexico (plus Canada) had reached an agreement on a revised North American Free Trade Agreement just months earlier, at Trump’s insistence. Ratification of the new trade deal, the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), is now in jeopardy

WASHINGTON, DC – Not content with its trade war against China, US President Donald Trump’s administration has also opened bilateral trade negotiations with Japan. Yet whatever Trump hopes to achieve with Japan, it will be far less than what he threw away when he abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in early 2017

WASHINGTON, DC – When you try something for 99 years and the situation keeps getting worse, it is time to try something else. The United States Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (also known as the Jones Act) in order to protect America’s shipping industry and strengthen national security. But the law has almost destroyed the industry, and imposed huge costs on America’s businesses, consumers, and the environment. It needs to be sunk