In the wake of the Vietnam War, Congress passed two historic pieces of legislation that were designed to constrain the executive branch’s seemingly unilateral war‐​making abilities. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 and the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, in theory, provide Congress with the ability to restrain presidents from waging war and selling […]

Cryptocurrency regulation sits at the intersection of multiple regulatory regimes: financial markets regulators and banking regulators, among many others, have asserted authority over certain aspects of crypto regulation, which has resulted in an overlapping and incomplete regulatory framework that has drawn criticism from both proponents and skeptics of crypto innovation. So, how is cryptocurrency regulated? […]

Political polarization and dysfunction are more than just the byproducts of a bad national mood. They emerge in large part from the legal and institutional machinery of politics and elections, shaped over the years by those on both sides of the ideological divide. America has repeatedly managed to escape earlier periods of factional antipathy, insider […]

Cato’s 39th Annual Monetary Conference—Populism and the Future of the Fed—will bring together leading scholars and policymakers to explore the risks that populism poses to the conduct of monetary policy. As the bright line between monetary and fiscal policy fades, and the threat of fiscal dominance increases, a robust discussion of the Fed’s future is […]

Do the nation’s highest officers, including the president, have a right to lie, no matter what damage their falsehoods cause? Does freedom of expression protect falsehoods? If so, are lies by candidates and public officials protected? And is there a constitutional path, without violating the First Amendment, to stop a president whose persistent lies endanger […]

Domestic terrorism has been a part of the American political landscape since the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the Civil War’s aftermath. During the turbulent transformation of American society during the 1960s and 1970s, a new kind of domestic terrorism threat emerged. Homegrown leftist guerrilla groups, such as the Weather Underground and the […]

In 2014, the United States and 17 other countries began negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to create an Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA). The aim of these talks was to remove or reduce tariffs on important environmentally friendly products such as wind turbines, solar panels, and energy‐​efficient technology. An EGA would allow for freer […]

What explains the explosion in growth and prosperity that humanity has experienced in the past couple centuries? Why did that process take root more readily in some places than in others, and how can its spread be encouraged? Professors Deirdre McCloskey and Stephen Haber will provide separate accounts. McCloskey will contest standard economic explanations and […]

Beginning in the 19th century with Anthony Comstock, America’s “censor in chief,” The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder explores how censors operate and why they wore out their welcome in society at large. This book explains how the same tactics were tried and eventually failed in the 20th century, with […]

Cato’s annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day‐​long symposium featuring noted scholars discussing the recently concluded Supreme Court term and the […]

Ever since Congress created the income tax in 1913, workers have been able to avoid paying tax on income they receive in the form of fringe benefits, such as health insurance. The flip side of this feature is that Congress effectively threatens workers with higher taxes unless they allow their employer to control a large […]