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Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby is rightly impressed by the new book by Mark Krikorian and my former student Alex Nowrasteh, Open Immigration: Yea & Nay.  Alex makes a great case for the “yea” side of this question.

Despite the title that (presumably) the editors of the New York Times put on my colleague Tyler Cowen’s column today, Tyler here reports on research that shows that economic freedom generally fosters greater tolerance.  A slice:

One of their most striking findings is that societies characterized by greater economic freedom and greater wealth do indeed exhibit greater tolerance toward gay people, a tendency suggesting that gay rights, including gay marriage, will spread globally as national economies liberalize and develop. In other words, if a society allows individuals to engage in consenting capitalist activities with a minimum of legal regulation, we might also expect tolerance of a variety of other choices, including those regarding sexual behavior. Identifying cause and effect can be difficult in such studies, but increases in economic freedom have been associated with increases in this kind of tolerance. Score one for the Enlightenment.

I very much look forward to reading Christopher Snowdon’s new book, Selfishness, Greed and Capitalism: Debunking Myths about the Free Market.

My Mercatus Center colleague Veronique de Rugy finds that, since 2001, the dollar cost of Uncle Sam’s wars in the Middle East totals nearly $1.7 trillion.  Of course, the cost in terms of lost lives (of innocent Americans and non-Americans), lost freedoms, and an increasingly militarized society are far greater and much more ominous.

Phil Magness casts further doubts on the veracity of Thomas Piketty’s data on the historical trend of the distribution of wealth in the United States.  (HT Bob Murphy)

Sheldon Richman reflects on the late Nathaniel Brandon and libertarians’ strategies.

George Will ponders the harm unleashed by the welfare state.

My colleague Larry White’s new paper is “Hayek and Contemporary Macroeconomics.

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