We investigate the determinants of the severity of U.S. state-level lockdown regulations adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. We employ a new measure of Lockdown Regulatory Freedom from Miozzi and Powell (2023b) to investigate whether pre-pandemic measures of economic freedom, political...

The Covid-19 pandemic led to extensive new government regulations and lockdown policies that significantly reduced economic freedom across U.S. states. Many of these new pandemic-related regulatory restrictions on economic freedom varied significantly from state to state but are largely missed...

Out of Poverty provides a comprehensive defence of Third World sweatshops that does not put economic efficiency over people, but instead explores methods of improving the welfare of those in Third World countries. The author explains how sweatshops provide the best opportunity for workers; and...

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 led to extensive new government regulations and lockdown policies that severely reduced economic freedom. However, many of these new pandemic related regulatory restrictions on economic freedom are largely missed by the Economic Freedom of the World Report (EFW)....

We examine whether aid affects recipient countries’ economic freedom. The existing empirical literature examining this relationship has found conflicting results. However, all of these existing studies have struggled to employ plausible identification strategies to find a causal relationship...

This paper reviews the ethically relevant consequences of immigration as established by economists’ studies. We then evaluate what various philosophical frameworks recommend as an ethical immigration policy. Existing U.S. immigration policy is found to be far from ethical regardless of which...

This study investigates the impact of anti-sweatshop activism on garment industry employment and the number of firms in Bangladesh following the 2013 Rana Plaza factory disaster. The disaster led to activism that created two major brand-enforced factory fire and safety agreements. We employ a...