Scholarly Articles
Economic Liberty | Vending
Does the Growth of Food Trucks Threaten the Sustainability of Restaurants? Evidence From a Nationwide Analysis of U.S. Businesses
This article examines whether growth in the food truck sector in the United States harms restaurants, as restaurateurs and their allies often claim. Using 12 years of nationwide data in a dynamic panel data analysis, we…
4th Amendment Project | Open Fields Doctrine
The Open Fields Doctrine Is Wrong
This year marks the centennial of the Fourth Amendment “open fields” doctrine. That doctrine holds that the vast majority of private land in the United States receives zero Fourth Amendment protection—and thus government officials can…
Civil Forfeiture | Private Property
Does Civil Forfeiture Fight Crime? Evidence From New Mexico
This study examined civil forfeiture’s impact on crime rates. Proponents of civil forfeiture, which allows law enforcement to take and permanently keep property without a criminal conviction, claim it is an essential crime-fighting tool, particularly…
Code Enforcement | Fines and Fees | Private Property
Are Municipal Fines and Fees Tools of Stategraft?
Most, if not all, incorporated communities in the United States have municipal and traffic codes that delineate the powers and duties of local governments or provide rules and regulations for public activity in the community.
4th Amendment Project | Open Fields Doctrine
Good Fences? Good Luck
Released in the Cato Institute’s Regulation magazine, IJ’s study “Good Fences? Good Luck” is the first study to put a number on the amount of private property vulnerable to warrantless searches by federal agents thanks to a…
Civil Forfeiture | Private Property
Generating Revenue Through Civil Forfeiture
Civil forfeiture is a mechanism by which law enforcement can seize and keep property purportedly connected to a crime absent the arrest, formal charging, or even conviction of the property owner. Forfeiture laws also…
Economic Liberty | Occupational Licensing
How Sunrise Reviews Help Keep Regulation Focused on Health and Safety
Licensing professionals face a daunting challenge: effectively and justly balancing public health and safety with freedom of occupational practice. Whether in the course of rulemaking, enforcement, or advising lawmakers, licensing professionals can strive to strike…
Commercial Speech | Economic Liberty | First Amendment
Standards of Identity and Imitation Milk Labeling
The stated motivation for identity standards is to protect consumers from misleading claims and reduce confusion. However, identity standards with little flexibility may increase consumer confusion while limiting the ability of firms to differentiate products.
Immunity and Accountability
Unqualified Immunity and the Betrayal of Butz v. Economou: How the Supreme Court Quietly Granted Federal Officials Absolute Immunity for Constitutional Violations
Betraying the long history of federal accountability in the United States, the modern Supreme Court has ushered in an era of increasingly absolute and unqualified immunity for federal officials.
Immunity and Accountability
Recalibrating Qualified Immunity: How Tanzin v. Tanvir, Taylor v. Riojas, and McCoy v. Alamu Signal the Supreme Court’s Discomfort with the Doctrine of Qualified Immunity
Recent decisions by the Supreme Court offer the strongest signal in decades that the Court is ready to recalibrate its qualified immunity jurisprudence.
Economic Liberty | Occupational Licensing
Introducing a New Data Set on Municipal-Level Occupational Regulation
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss new findings on municipal-level occupational licensing and other forms of regulation and introduce a new data set available for researchers to study this largely unexplored area.
Code Enforcement | Fines and Fees | Private Property
A Case Study of Municipal Taxation by Citation
This study examines taxation by citation—local governments using code enforcement and the justice system to raise revenue rather than solely to advance public health and safety. It does so through a detailed case study of…
Educational Choice
The Status of Use-Based Exclusions & Educational Choice After Espinoza
In this article, Michael Bindas discusses the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department for Revenue, in which the Court held that states cannot bar families participating in educational choice programs from choosing…
Civil Forfeiture | Private Property
A New Panel Dataset for Studies Using Substate Units of Analysis and Indicators of Drug Activity
This research note reports on the creation of a new panel dataset using multiple waves of substate estimates from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. It also provides identifying information that contains state,…
Commercial Speech | Economic Liberty | First Amendment | Food Freedom | Food Freedom
Censorship and Sensibility: Does the First Amendment Allow the FDA to Change the Meanings of Words?
The question of whether the Constitution allows the government to change the meanings of words is receiving renewed interest in the aftermath of the FDA’s announcement that it intends to examine whether it should begin…
Economic Liberty | Food Freedom
The relationship between cottage food laws and business outcomes
The increasing popularity of cottage foods in the United States requires that state laws regulating the industry be given careful consideration. However, little is known about cottage food producers or their businesses. This article discusses…
Civil Forfeiture | Private Property
Civil Forfeiture Hurts America’s Poor
In 2014, Tyson Timbs sold $400 worth of drugs to undercover police in an effort to support his addiction. Tyson, a first-time offender, was sentenced to one year of house arrest and five years of…
Economic Liberty | Occupational Licensing
The Continuing Burden of Occupational Licensing in the United States
This study follows up an earlier study in which we examined the scope and burden of 102 occupational licensing laws in the United States for low‐ and moderate‐income occupations. Using data collected in 2017, findings…
Economic Liberty | Occupational Licensing
You’ll Need a License for That Job
In 2013, Heather Kokesch Del Castillo found herself in an unfulfilling career and began to question whether she was following her true passion. At the same time, she was growing increasingly dissatisfied with her physical…
Economic Liberty | Vending
Street Vending in the United States: A Unique Dataset from a Survey of Street Vendors in America’s Largest Cities
The data described in this article come from an original survey of street vendors in the 50 largest cities in the United States. One of the most persistent, although little understood, features of the urban…
Civil Forfeiture | Private Property
The Questionable Ethics of Civil Forfeiture
On a cool, sunny November day, Mark Brewer – a disabled decorated U.S. Air Force veteran – was driving through the state of Nebraska on his way to Los Angles to visit his uncle. While…
Civil Forfeiture | Private Property
Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws and Equitable Sharing Activity by the Police
Research Summary For several decades, critics have argued that civil forfeiture laws create incentives for law enforcement to increase departmental revenue by “policing for profit.” By using data on federal equitable sharing payments to nearly…
Civil Forfeiture | Private Property
The Welfare Effects of Civil Forfeiture
Using a laboratory experiment we explore competing claims on the welfare effects of civil forfeiture. Experiment participants are tasked with making trade-offs in allocating resources “to fight crime” with and without the ability to seize…
Educational Choice
Federal Special Education Law and State School Choice Programs
In this article, Nat Malkus and Tim Keller outline the federal laws that protect students with disabilities, give an overview of school choice programs, and explain how participating in school choice programs affects the rights…
Economic Liberty | First Amendment | Occupational Licensing | Occupational Speech | Vending
Bottleneckers: The Origins of Occupational Licensing and What Can Be Done About Its Excesses
At this moment, a campaign is being waged in America’s state capitals. Its purpose? To protect the public from the menace of unregulated music therapists. A music therapist “directs and participates in instrumental and vocal…
Economic Liberty | First Amendment | Occupational Licensing | Occupational Speech | Vending
Bottleneckers: Gaming the Government for Power and Private Profit
The Left, Right and Center all hate them: powerful special interests who use government power for their own private benefit. In an era when the Left hates “fat cats” and the Right despises “crony capitalists,” now there…
Economic Liberty | Occupational Licensing
Occupations: A Hierarchy of Regulatory Options
Momentum is growing in favor of reining in excessive occupational licensing. However, policymaking in this arena is too often plagued by assumptions that the only regulatory options are no licensing or full licensing. Such binary…
Educational Choice
Who Chooses and Why in a Universal Choice Scholarship Program: Evidence From Douglas County, Colorado
This article studies parental decision making in a unique school choice program—a universal voucher system in a middle- and upper-income suburban/rural school district. A survey of parents found that applicants and nonapplicants looked similar across…
First Amendment | Occupational Speech | Tour Guides
Occupational Speech and the First Amendment
In May 2013, newspaper columnist John Rosemond received a cease-and-desist letter from the Kentucky Board of Examiners of Psychology informing him that his syndicated column — in which he answers readers’ questions about parenting —…
Regulating work
This study examines the scope and burden of occupational licensing laws in the United States for 102 low- and moderate-income occupations. Findings indicate that the licences studied require of aspiring workers, on average, $US209 in…