In this essay, VanMetre and Hall draw upon the Austrian and new institutional schools of economics and deploy the Economic Freedom of the World Index to empirically test the relationship between property rights and economic prosperity. Their analysis confirms De Soto's thesis that secure...

Illinois has run a structural deficit for over a decade [as of the date of this paper, October 2011]. The state's unfunded pension obligations are $173 billion, with the fund projected to run out of assets by 2018. Illinois's Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEB)—largely consisting of health...

Rhode Island's state and municipal pension systems face large and growing unfunded pension liabilities. The governor and state treasurer have identified pension reform as a key to stabilizing the state's finances and also to ensuring a sustainable retirement fund for Rhode Island's public...

In 2010, after grappling with a decade of structural deficits and two years of recession, Maryland's Spending Affordability Committee (SAC) questioned its 30-year record on limiting state spending: "Recent years have sorely tested the budgetary concepts customarily employed to account for...