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Check out the Cato Institute’s new Handbook on Affordability.

My Mercatus Center colleague Salim Furth shares a new paper that, as summarized by Salim, “demonstrates that mayoral elections have a large influence on housing supply outcomes. It also shows that developer’s political contributions pay off in ways that sound like corruption.”

Murray Sabrin’s letter in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal is excellent:

Sen. Bernie Moreno’s op-ed, “Trump Gave the GOP a New, Populist Soul,” (April 14), rests on a series of deeply flawed economic premises. The claim that American workers are being ripped off by corporate greed ignores a basic reality: In competitive markets, firms must bid for labor, driving wages in line with productivity. Government intervention is what truly erodes workers’ purchasing power.

Equally troubling is the redefinition of free enterprise as federal micromanagement. True free markets rely on voluntary exchange and price signals, not industrial policy directed from Washington. When the government substitutes its judgment for that of millions of people, inefficiency and cronyism inevitably follow.

Furthermore, the op-ed’s nod to “fiscal discipline” is difficult to take seriously as federal deficits continue to balloon. Similarly, while tariffs are portrayed as a path to manufacturing strength, they actually function as taxes on American consumers and invite retaliation, distorting trade rather than revitalizing it.

Sound economic policy requires a stable dollar, low tax burdens, constitutionally limited spending and the removal of unnecessary regulations. Sen. Moreno’s piece contains echoes of ideas more commonly associated with Sen. Bernie Sanders than with a genuine commitment to free enterprise.

George Will warns of dire consequences if California’s proposed wealth tax is enacted. A slice:

Although the wealth tax is a cafeteria of unintended economic consequences, even cumulatively they are less ominous than one predictable, and perhaps intended, political consequence. The tax would effect a radical, and probably irreversible, change in the relationship of the individual to any government that enacts such a tax.

Laura Williams of the American Institute for Economic Research, writing for Reason, says the tax would give government a roving license “to inventory every item in our possession.” This would likely be a prelude to repeated confiscations of percentages of the possessions’ value. Even worse, the infrastructure for administering the tax would mean a permanent enlargement of the government’s intrusiveness. This would contract the sphere of individual autonomy, and subtract from the security of liberty.

Speaking of economically harmful policies in California, my Mercatus Center colleague Satya Marar makes clear that “California’s latest attack on big tech is BASED on bad economics.” A slice:

California has long been the global digital economy’s growth engine. However, Californian policymakers’ latest proposal to “promote fairness” for third-party businesses by importing European-style regulation would only hamper the goods and services that have made American tech companies like Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta so popular.

Introduced by Senator Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, the BASED Act imports elements of the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). It targets “self-preferencing,” that is where digital platforms like Amazon’s marketplace or Google Maps promote their own services or those of affiliates over third-party businesses that use their platform to reach customers. The BASED Act would treat many common product integrations, such as ranking, bundling, defaults, data use, and even some AI-driven recommendations, as presumptively illegal without asking whether they harm consumers.

Instead of promoting fairness, it would make digital tools less useful by tailoring their architectures and algorithms to regulators’ whims rather than user preferences. Far from promoting neutrality, it would “rig the game” by favoring some businesses over others.

Self-preferencing long predates the internet. Supermarkets, for example, give their own house brands prime shelf space, pushing name brands to compete on price or quality. This often increases competition, and can lead to lower prices by eliminating “double marginalization,” where multiple firms each add their own markups along the supply chain.

Eric Boehm reports this fact that should not be – but, apparently, to many people nevertheless is – surprising: “Trump ended free trade for Mexican tomatoes. Prices are up 23 percent in the last year.” A slice:

Tomato prices are now 23 percent higher than they were in March 2025, according to the BLS. That means tomato prices have risen significantly faster than overall inflation (up 3.3 percent in the past year) and food prices as a whole (which are up 2.7 percent). Even gas prices, which get more attention, are up just 18.9 percent in the past year.

So why are tomatoes suddenly much more expensive? In part, it’s because tomatoes imported from Mexico are now subject to tariffs. With the tomato trade agreement gone, Mexican tomatoes are now subject to a tariff of about 17 percent — and, like with many other products, the tariff gets passed along down the supply chain.

Linking to this Bloomberg report and quoting its headline, Scott Lincicome tweets:

“US Industrial Production Fell in March in Broad Decline”
Still waiting for that tariff boom….

Robert E. Wright details his experience as a plaintiff in a Fourth-amendment case.

The Washington Post‘s Editorial Board recounts how the Biden administration’s use of antitrust – allegedly to promote competition in the U.S. airline industry – wound up reducing competition in the U.S. airline industry. A slice: