regulation

The “No More ‘Too Big to Fail’” rallying cry is unrealistic, says Cheryl Block, JD, federal taxation, budget and bailout expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “When the next really big economic crisis arises, Congress is unlikely to stick to its ‘no bailout’ pledge,” she says.

Hillary A. Sale, JD, securities law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, talks with Steve Chiotakis of Marketplace Public Radio about whether it’s difficult to prosecute derivatives trading and what she’s watching closely about cases coming down the pike.

Boldrin In a full-page ad published in major newspapers Jan. 29, more than 200 economists — including two from Washington University in St. Louis — politely reject President Obama’s stimulus package calling for increased government action to jumpstart the economy.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoElvin-Lewis inspects a kava plant in the Goldfarb Greenhouse.Ginsengs, echinaceas, and ephedras, oh my! These herbs sound innocuous enough, however, according to Memory Elvin-Lewis, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and ethnobotany in biomedicine in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, Americans are unaware of the dangers inherent in these herbal supplements.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoMemory Elvin-Lewis in the Goldfarb Greenhouse inspects a kava plant. Elvin-Lewis has written a chapter in a new book that is critical of the unregulated U.S. herbal trade.Ginsengs, echinaceas, and ephedras, oh my! These herbs sound innocuous enough, however, according to Memory Elvin-Lewis, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and ethnobotany in biomedicine in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, Americans are unaware of the dangers inherent in these herbal supplements. More…

Written in a plainspoken and often humorous style, the memoir offers a fresh and engaging perspective on Reagan’s leadership style and motivations.

For nearly a quarter century, Murray Weidenbaum has said little about what it was like to serve as the first chairman of President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, a role in which he was a primary architect of policies later known as “Reaganomics.” Now, one year after Reagan’s passing, Weidenbaum has issued a brief memoir detailing his years as the president’s chief economic adviser.

WarrenSpending by federal regulatory agencies continues to grow at a faster pace than other nondiscretionary spending according to “Upward Trend in Regulation Continues: An Analysis of the U.S. Budget for Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006,” this year’s edition of the annual report on regulatory spending and staffing by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Give me a one-armed economist,” President Harry S. Truman once demanded as he vented his frustration over economic advisors who offer straightforward recommendations, then hedge their bets by tacking on a slew of caveats, often beginning with the phrase “but, on the other hand…” Now, Murray Weidenbaum, the chairman of President Ronald Reagan’s first Council of Economic Advisers, has published a compilation of essays that offers the clear, no-nonsense economic policy analysis that Truman craved. Titled One-Armed Economist: On the Intersection of Business and Government, the book provides a distillation of four decades of Weidenbaum’s writings on key public policy issues.

WeidenbaumThe economic power of American businesses is playing a key role in the war on terrorism: helping cut off the flow of money to terrorist groups, producing anti-terrorist equipment, screening employees and visitors entering company facilities, manufacturing the medicines to respond to biological and chemical attacks, and making the weapons used by our armed forces in the fight. Nevertheless, such responses often raise the cost of production and act like a new tax on private enterprise, suggests Washington University in St. Louis economist Murray Weidenbaum.