Contrary to conventional wisdom, the world is neither converging on liberal democracy nor being swept by an authoritarian tide. The decisive political struggles of the 21st century will be won or lost through the unglamorous work of strengthening democratic accountability and building effective institutions.
An Apple logo is visible in a store in lower Manhattan on June 25, 2026 in New York City. Spencer Platt | Getty Images News | Getty Images The U.S. stock market is in a two-month rut, bond yields are making new highs, and earnings from Alphabet and Tesla dropped the ball. Bulls need a…
U.S. President Donald Trump arrives with incoming Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh for Warsh’s swearing-in ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 22, 2026. Jonathan Ernst | Reuters After years of hostility toward the Federal Reserve, President Donald Trump has lately taken a new tack. He treats Chairman Kevin Warsh as almost…
In The New York Times, Senators Bernie Moreno (R-OH) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) propose to “save” Social Security by lifting the cap on earnings subject to the payroll taxA payroll tax is a tax paid on the wages and salaries of employees to finance social insurance programs like Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance. Payroll taxes…
Tax expenditures – deductions, reduced rates and other preferential tax provisions – are a well-established instrument of fiscal policy. They serve a wide range of purposes: stimulating investment, supporting social objectives and accompanying structural change are just a few examples. In Switzerland, the last estimate for federal tax expenditures puts them at CHF 25 billion…
U.S. life expectancy stagnated and declined in the 2010s despite continued growth in real per capita income. We use Preston curves to characterize this pattern as a change in the relationship between income and longevity. Using state-level data from 1980 to 2019 and county-level data from 2000 to 2019, we estimate population-weighted Preston curves relating…
In a world where we push people crossing seas in small boats back into dangerous open water and build ever higher walls to keep out people who seek a better life, the commodification of citizenship and residency and the selling of golden visas to the richest raises serious moral concerns. The Golden Visas indicator of…
BERLIN—This year has been marked by striking political upheavals. For supporters of liberal democracy, the most encouraging news came in April, when Hungarian voters brought an end to former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s 16-year project of building an authoritarian model that he dubbed “illiberal democracy.” Defying the odds and the Fidesz party’s manipulation of public and private media, Hungarians handed Péter Magyar’s Tisza party a landslide victory, making him prime minister.