Time for an Alternative to Mexico’s Drug War

by Jorge Castañeda
There have been approximately 55,000 drug-war-related deaths since Felipe Calerdón took office in Mexico and declared war on the drug cartels. In this paper, former foreign minister Jorge Castañeda argues that the drug war in Mexico was launched on false premises, and suggests an alternative policy approach along three lines: combating violence, not drug trafficking; building a national police and pulling the army back; and fighting for legalization.

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The Economic Case against Arizona’s Immigration Laws

by Alex Nowrasteh
Arizona’s immigration laws have hurt its economy. The 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA) attempts to force unauthorized immigrants out of the workplace with employee regulations and employer sanctions. The 2010 Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (SB 1070) complements LAWA by granting local police new legal tools to enforce Arizona’s immigration laws outside of the workplace. As a result, employers scale back legal hiring, move out of Arizona, or turn to the informal economy to eliminate a paper trail. States now considering Arizona-style immigration laws should realize that these laws cause significant economic harm.

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Economic Effects of Reduction in Defense Outlays

by Benjamin Zycher
This study examines the prospective economic effects of a reduction below the current baseline in defense outlays of $100 billion per year over 10 years. The author argues that a reduction in defense spending—and in federal spending in total—would reduce as well the economic costs of the excess burden that the tax system imposes upon the economy. A reduction in defense outlays of $100 billion per year can be predicted conservatively to reduce economic costs by a total of $135 billion per year.

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Other new research

POLICY ANALYSIS

Still a Protectionist Trade Remedy: The Case for Repealing Section 337
by K. William Watson
The Impact of Charter Schools on Public and Private Schools
by Richard Buddin

FREE TRADE BULLETIN

Free Trade and Tobacco: Thank You for Not Smoking (Foreign) Cigarettes
by Simon Lester

WORKING PAPER

World Hyperinflations
by Steve H. Hanke and Nicholas Krus

REGULATION

Volume 35, Number 3, Fall 2012
Cover Story: Moving Markets into the Light

CATO JOURNAL

Volume 32, Number 3, Fall 2012
A Tribute to William A. Niskanen

Economic Freedom of the World:
2012 Annual Report

The first Economic Freedom of the World Report, published in 1996, was the result of a decade of research by a team that included several Nobel Laureates and over 60 other leading scholars in a broad range of fields, including economics, political science, law and philosophy. This is the 16th edition of Economic Freedom of the World and this year’s publication ranks 144 nations for 2010, the most recent year for which data are available.
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