Cato Event Podcast

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the transition experience of ex-socialist countries toward the market has been varied, with cases of successful economic and political reforms and cases of reform failure. Leszek Balcerowicz will explain how free-market economies based on the rule of law perform incomparably better than centrally planned economies, but, as he will also point out, tha...

Full event: 37 th Annual Monetary Conference Shadowing the Fed’s strategic review, Cato’s 37th Annual Monetary Conference explores a broad array of recommendations for improving the monetary framework — and goes beyond the narrow scope of the Fed’s agenda to share a vision for a monetary system best suited for a free society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Full event: 37 th Annual Monetary Conference Shadowing the Fed’s strategic review, Cato’s 37th Annual Monetary Conference explores a broad array of recommendations for improving the monetary framework — and goes beyond the narrow scope of the Fed’s agenda to share a vision for a monetary system best suited for a free society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Full event: 37 th Annual Monetary Conference Shadowing the Fed’s strategic review, Cato’s 37th Annual Monetary Conference explores a broad array of recommendations for improving the monetary framework — and goes beyond the narrow scope of the Fed’s agenda to share a vision for a monetary system best suited for a free society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Full event: 37 th Annual Monetary Conference Shadowing the Fed’s strategic review, Cato’s 37th Annual Monetary Conference explores a broad array of recommendations for improving the monetary framework — and goes beyond the narrow scope of the Fed’s agenda to share a vision for a monetary system best suited for a free society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Full event: 37 th Annual Monetary Conference Shadowing the Fed’s strategic review, Cato’s 37th Annual Monetary Conference explores a broad array of recommendations for improving the monetary framework — and goes beyond the narrow scope of the Fed’s agenda to share a vision for a monetary system best suited for a free society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Full event: 37 th Annual Monetary Conference Shadowing the Fed’s strategic review, Cato’s 37th Annual Monetary Conference explores a broad array of recommendations for improving the monetary framework — and goes beyond the narrow scope of the Fed’s agenda to share a vision for a monetary system best suited for a free society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In their new graphic nonfiction book Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration , authors Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith turn the heated public debate over immigration on its head by proposing a radical and controversial solution: open borders. Caplan argues that opening all borders would practically eliminate absolute poverty worldwide and usher in a booming worldwide economy―greatly...

What does it take for liberty to emerge and to flourish? Daron Acemoglu will explain how, from antiquity to the modern age, the strong have tended to dominate the weak because states are too strong and despotic or because violence and lawlessness arise in their absence. Achieving liberty requires a constant struggle between the state and society that strikes a balance between the elite and citizen...

Competitive grant funds, including BUILD (formerly known as TIGER) and New Starts (also known as transit capital grants), are supposed to ensure that federal dollars are spent where they are most needed. In fact, most of them are wasted as state and local governments propose expensive and obsolete projects in order to get the most "free" federal dollars. Since these programs are up for renewal in...

Robert Zubrin tells the amazing true story of how hard-driving entrepreneurial ventures such as SpaceX and Blue Origin have accomplished what was previously thought of only as a capability of major-power governments: space exploration. He contends that private-sector competition will bring down the cost of space launches and in-space technology and shows how those trends are already underway. Zubr...

As a candidate for the presidency, Donald Trump declared the prevailing American foreign policy consensus “a complete and total disaster.” He vowed to “shake the rust off of American foreign policy” and promised that his administration would be guided by putting American security and American interests above all other considerations. In Fuel to the Fire: How Trump Made America’s Broken Foreign Pol...

Donald Trump’s presidency has triggered a growing debate on both sides of the Atlantic about the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and U.S. policy regarding the alliance. In NATO: The Dangerous Dinosaur , Ted Galen Carpenter outlines how NATO in its current form has outlived its purpose, and burden sharing is only part of the problem. Continuing to expand NATO eastward, encro...

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, “left” and “right” have been used routinely to describe conflicting political ideologies, notwithstanding their notorious ambiguity and—a fact too often forgotten—a shared utopian root. The dream of a perfect world has inspired each generation; that hope is universal. The vision of a demigod-superman who destroys all evil, thereby inaugurating a utopia of pe...

Public discussions about vaping nicotine products have changed dramatically in the last few months. Vaping, an activity generally regarded as safer than smoking, is now viewed by many lawmakers and health officials as a serious threat. People who vape have begun to face restrictions similar to those placed on cigarettes. While there’s no question that cigarette smoking is one of the biggest causes...

We live in an age of unprecedented prosperity. Yet a recent psychological study found that anxiety “is significantly more prevalent and impairing in high-income countries than in low- or middle-income countries.” Clay Routledge argues that these and related research findings are a warning that prosperous societies such as the United States are facing a crisis of meaning that may ultimately undermi...

Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) operate in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. These statewide electronic databases of prescriptions dispensed for controlled substances were established in response to the opioid overdose crisis. Their purpose is to facilitate drug diversion investigations by law enforcement, change prescribing behavior, and reduce “doctor shopping” by patient...

Daniel Ellsberg. Edward Snowden. Elin Baklid-Kunz. Lynn Stout. Diane Roark. Franz Gayl. They and others like them come from all across the country. Some worked for the federal government; others worked in the private sector. All have one thing in common: in the organizations for which they worked, they saw things they knew were morally and legally wrong. Each made a life-altering decision to do so...

Naloxone—an opioid antagonist that reverses overdoses—is a safe, effective, critical tool for preventing opioid-overdose deaths. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration nevertheless continues to require a prescription for each naloxone purchase, an unnecessary requirement that limits access to this life-saving drug. On October 2, the Cato Institute will hold a two-part Capitol Hill Briefing to discu...

In his forthcoming book How to Be a Dictator , Frank Dikötter examines the cults and propaganda surrounding twentieth-century dictators, from Hitler and Stalin to Mao Zedong and Kim II Sung. These men were the founders of modern dictatorships, and they learned from each other and from history to build their regimes and maintain their public images. Their dictatorships, in turn, have influenced lea...

Data are the lifeblood of public policy analysis. In criminal justice policy, crime data can be used to determine whether crime victimization is trending up or down in a given area or whether an innovative type of policing is effective. But how data are analyzed can have extraordinary effects on policy outcomes and future recommendations. In his re-released award-winning book, The Condemnation of...

American higher education is in a bad place: public confidence is dropping, prices are daunting, and presidential candidates are clamoring to fundamentally change how it’s funded. Join us to hear U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) discuss his interest in finding solutions to the many problems with higher education policy. Attendees will then hear from the authors and editors of three new books tacklin...

James Grant’s new book, Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian , tells the story of Walter Bagehot — a 19th century banker, an essayist, and a former editor of The Economist . Born in a small town in late-Georgian England, Bagehot became one of the most influential figures in Victorian-era finance and politics. Indeed, thanks to his celebrated 1873 treatise, Lombard Street: A Descri...

An Introduction to Constitutional Law will teach you the narrative of constitutional law as it has developed over the past two centuries. All readers — even those unfamiliar with American history — will learn the essential background for grasping how this body of law has come to be what it is today. The accompanying online video library brings to life the Supreme Court’s 100 most important decisio...

Has the spread of capitalism been a net positive or a net negative for women around the world? Is capitalism an inherently exploitative, oppressive, and patriarchal economic system entwined with the subjugation of women? Or has it helped to empower women, enhancing their material well-being and fostering gender parity? Advocates of women’s welfare disagree on these important questions. As a result...