Hicks: Stamp out mediocrity in education colleges
Over the past two years, Indiana has replaced licensing and compensation rules for public schoolteachers that required degrees exclusively from teachers colleges.
Mike Hicks
Articles
Hicks: China’s economy colliding into great wall
For more than three decades, China’s economy has dazzled observers, with annual growth frequently sneaking into double digits. But the wide-eyed narrative of boundless wealth that has accompanied this growth is suffering a couple of hiccups.
Hicks: ‘Real poverty’ is beating a retreat globally
Over the past 30 years, the number of people in the world living in “real poverty” has dropped from just under 2 billion to fewer than 1.1 billion. This is a drop from roughly 40 percent to 15 percent of the world’s population.
HICKS: There’s no end to odd stories about coinage
Today, we hear from seemingly sophisticated folks that we should return to the gold standard, and so ensure long-run stability and remove those unseemly humans from decisions about money. That argument ignores two common axioms.
Hicks: Same-sex debate obscures larger family crisis
Same-sex marriage or household arrangements possess no economic consequences. However, the debate itself does have consequences because it crowds out honest deliberation on the real problems of collapsing families.
Hicks: The Austrian school is winning the fiscal debate
Political folklore has it that economists are infamously divided between Keynesian and classical explanations for the cause of the boom-and-bust cycle.
Hicks: A better immigration policy needed right now
Our immigration policy is broken. We could absorb many of the best-educated workers in the world, but we encumber them in decades of costly red tape or send them to boost the economies of Canada, Britain and Germany.
Hicks: Manufacturing turns out remarkably good news
I am always reluctant to fill this column with my recent research, but last week’s release of the annual Conexus Manufacturing Scorecard begs comment. Indiana did much better in the cost of worker benefits and continued to lead in the size of manufacturing and logistics. Indiana also ranked third in the pace of manufacturing recovery […]
Hicks: Attractive places help Indiana grow faster
I am often asked to explain why more and better local amenities matter to job creation. It is a simple concept, really. Families make choices about where to live based upon a variety of factors, including playgrounds, safe and attractive neighborhoods, and recreational activities. They will sacrifice to obtain these things, commute long distances and even forgo higher wages.
Hicks: Finding the good and the bad in TARP bailouts
The Congressional Budget Office’s most recent assessment of the cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, in late May, occasioned far less thoughtful discussion of the role of government than it should have.
Hicks: International trade is the exact opposite of war
Among economists of all stripes, it is well understood that international trade increases wealth, reduces poverty and generally makes everyone better off in the long run. The only real question is whether the total economic benefits are immediately realized or take just a few years to mature.
Hicks: Firing of Heritage researcher shows cowardice
A recent study by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, sheds a great deal of light on the sausage mill of policy research, and the courage and integrity of the process of policy research altogether.
Hicks: Root cause of suffering labor market elusive
At the beginning of the Great Recession, in December 2007, there were more than 26 full-time workers for each part-time employee looking for full-time work. By June 2009, that number had shrunk to less than 15 full-time workers for each part-timer. There it has remained.
Hicks: The real cause of brain drain? Quality of life
Brain drain is a genuine problem in Indiana. But instead of slowing this trend, our higher education financing policies accelerate this problem by pushing more students into majors that are in demand elsewhere.
Hicks: Fiscal prudence should be rewarded by tax cuts
Indiana enjoys what economists call a “structural surplus” in state tax revenue. This means the several-hundred-million-dollar surplus is a permanent affair when viewed against current expenditures. It would be astonishing if this did not lead to calls for a tax cut, and so it has.
Hicks: Terror won’t bring down a determined nation
Along with the sadness and anger that accompanies the Boston bomb explosions should come the realization that this could well be our lot for decades to come. We should expect and prepare for the worst.
Hicks: Bourgeois dignity and the modern world
A most remarkable book, “Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World,”, says all the explanations of the explosion of economic growth that occurred about 300 years ago are inadequate.
Hicks: Three bad ideas that just won’t disappear
Perhaps difficult economic times unleash the power of long-discredited ideas into general circulation, because three bad intellectual influences merit noting—one from the political right, one bipartisan folly and one from the left.
HICKS: Major sea change about the debt under way
A public fight has emerged among economists over the past few weeks, which likely spells major policy changes over the coming years.
HICKS: Still too early to call Iraq war success or failure
The 10th anniversary of the start of the second Iraq war is an opportunity to reflect upon the economics of the conflict.