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1. Mapping economic diversification across the Gulf Cooperation Council

Author:
Karen E. Young
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The economies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) remain heavily reliant on natural resource revenue as a source of government spending and a driver of growth. Diversification efforts now often include new ways to generate revenue through state investments in energy projects abroad (including refining and petrochemical production) and national oil companies. Since 2015, the GCC countries have become more competitive with each other in altering their policy landscapes to streamline fiscal expenditure and attract foreign investment and resident investors. There is significant variation in policy approaches to foreign labor and tax. Each of these governments faces enormous strains on public finances and challenging economic outlooks, due to depressed oil prices, demographic pressures, high unemployment rates, and a lack of economic diversification. Debt has become a tool of choice, but the capacity to repay and the capacity to grow are both beginning to differentiate the GCC states.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Government, Natural Resources, and Economy
Political Geography:
Middle East, Gulf Cooperation Council, and Gulf Nations

2. Authoritarianism in the heart of Europe

Author:
Dalibor Rohac
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
What distinguishes the governments of Hungary and Poland are not their views on immigration nor their defense of national sovereignty or Europe’s Judeo-Christian heritage. Rather, it is their distinctly authoritarian and anti-market features. With a new Fundamental Law, electoral reform, and other far-reaching changes adopted in Hungary on strictly partisan lines, as well as a politicization of the judiciary and attacks on free media and civil society in both countries, the Law and Justice Party (PiS) and Fidesz governments have sought to entrench themselves and prevent meaningful democratic contestation of their power. In both countries, key achievements of the post-1989 transition to the free enterprise system are being reversed. In Poland, for example, 40 percent of all banking-sector assets are now held by the government. Hungarian and Polish authoritarianism, as well as the rise of political kleptocracy in Hungary, pose a direct threat to the values on which the transatlantic alliance was built and America’s interest in the region. The United States cannot afford to become a cheerleader for either Fidesz or PiS, no matter how convincing their conservative bona fides might seem.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Government, Politics, and Authoritarianism
Political Geography:
Europe, Eurasia, Poland, and Hungary

3. An Examination of State Non-Group and Small-Group Health Insurance Regulations

Author:
Anthony T. Lo Sasso
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The present upswing in state-level efforts to "do something about health care," combined with presidential campaign-related rhetoric, suggests that health care is back with a vengeance on the public consciousness. Many states are proposing what appear to be new strategies to cover the uninsured when in reality the "new" strategies rely on old approaches that have not proven highly effective in the past, notably community rating and guaranteed issue regulations. Using data culled from a popular health insurance distributor and the published literature provides a compelling portrait of the predictable distortions that can result from regulations aimed at improving perceived deficiencies in the non-group and small group health insurance markets.
Topic:
Economics, Government, Health, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States

4. Denial, Hope, and Panic

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
In October 1907, J. P. Morgan stemmed a financial panic by coercing other banks to join him in providing credit to Wall Street brokerage firms teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.[1] This year, over the weekend including March 15—the ominous Ides of March—James Dimon, head of JPMorgan Chase, was the one to act. With the Federal Reserve squarely behind him and assuming the risk, he prevented a Bear Stearns bankruptcy by agreeing to purchase the firm, providing it with a decent burial, at a price of $2 per share. Bear Stearns's stock had been valued at over $160 per share just a year ago. The $2 price virtually wiped out the value of that stock, one-third of which is owned by its 14,000 employees. This was clearly not a bailout for Bear Stearns shareholders, and whether or not the steps taken by the Fed on March 16 were sufficient to arrest a further collapse of available credit and the economy remains to be seen. As long as house prices keep falling, the underlying problem for credit markets and the economy remains.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States

5. False Dawn

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The bursting of every bubble is followed by statements suggesting that the worst is over and that the real economy will be unharmed. The weeks since mid-March have been such a period in the United States. The underlying problem—a bust in the residential real-estate market—has, however, grown worse, with peak-to-trough estimates of the drop in home prices having gone from 20 to 30 percent in the span of just two months. Meanwhile, the attendant damage to the housing sector and to the balance sheets tied to it has grown worse and spread beyond the subprime subsector.
Topic:
Economics, Government, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States

6. Social Welfare Conservatism

Author:
Douglas J. Besharov
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Finding that an op-ed by Michael Gerson poorly defined the conservative approach to social problems, Douglas J. Besharov outlined six principles that underlie the conservative position on government social programs. Besharov notes that being cautious about the possible ill effects of government intervention is not unique to conservatives. It is simply realistic to be skeptical about the federal government's ability to mitigate serious social welfare problems.
Topic:
Civil Society, Government, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States

7. The New Deal Jobs Myth

Author:
Amity Shlaes
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Democratic presidential candidates are invoking the New Deal as a model for addressing infrastructure, economic, and employment problems in the United States. But a careful look at New Deal spending suggests, in the words of Amity Shlaes, "not how much the public works achieved . . . [but] how little." Advocates for new federal government spending on highways, buildings, and roads should carefully weigh the need against the damage that comes from projects and jobs created for political reasons.
Topic:
Government, Industrial Policy, Political Economy, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States

8. Edwards and Organ Transplants

Author:
Scott Gottlieb
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Although John Edwards is no longer a presidential candidate, his attacks on the U.S. health care system will continue to resonate. As a candidate, he used the tragic case of Nataline Sarkisyan, who died while awaiting a liver transplant, as an indictment of the U.S. medical system and an argument for a European-style single-payer system. But AEI's Scott Gottlieb, M.D., argues that there is little support for Edwards's argument that a single-payer system would be better for people who need transplants. The data show, he says, that organ access in the United States, our willingness to transplant the sickest patients, and U.S. medical outcomes are among the best in the world.
Topic:
Government, Health, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States and California

9. Stern Lessons on Fed Policies and Actions

Author:
Amity Shlaes, Vincent R. Reinhart, Allan H. Meltzer, and John L. Chapman
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
How fragile is our financial system? What are the implications of the Fed's actions on Bear Stearns? Do we need new ways of thinking about the risks the system entails? In recent articles, four AEI scholars have looked closely at the evidence of what went wrong and what is ahead.
Topic:
Economics and Government
Political Geography:
United States

10. A Good Framework for Distributing Information on Off-Label Uses

Author:
Scott Gottlieb
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
In this article, AEI resident fellow Scott Gottlieb, M.D., describes how information about a new use of the breast cancer drug Herceptin was slow in reaching oncologists. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) delayed approving the new indication for almost two years, and during that period, the drug's sponsor could not distribute its findings about the new use. Proposed FDA guidelines on dissemination of information on unapproved uses of medical products, Gottlieb says, will establish a more appropriate standard for what kind of information should be shared.
Topic:
Government and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States