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The Cato Institute seeks to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace. Toward that goal, the Institute strives to achieve greater involvement of the intelligent, concerned lay public in questions of policy and the proper role of government.

• Happy Holidays from Cato
  

  The Cato Insitute would like to wish you a happy and safe holiday season. Amidst your celebrating, please take a moment to remember the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace.

  • "Peace On Earth, Free Trade For Men," by Daniel T. Griswold
  • "What to Be Thankful For," by David Boaz

  Make a Year-End Gift to Cato

• New Cato Journal Tackles Exchange Rates, Corruption
  

  In the current edition of the Cato Journal, Sitikantha Pattanaik highlights why the IMF decision on bilateral exchange rate policy surveillance cannot help in addressing the problem of global imbalances, even if it succeeds in delivering further appreciation of the exchange rates of surplus countries against the U.S. dollar.

  • Fall 2007 Issue of Cato Journal
  • "Global Imbalances, Tanking Dollar, and the IMF's Surveillance over Exchange Rate Policies," by Sitikantha Pattanaik
  • "Can Corruption Ever Improve an Economy?," by Douglas A. Houston
  • "Government Behavior and Trust: The Case of China," by Peihong Yang

• Dissecting the Subprime Mortgage Crisis
  

  The Federal Reserve on Tuesday proposed a much stricter set of rules for mortgage lenders as part of their effort to avert abusive lending. Cato scholar Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr. has argued that the recent crisis in the subprime mortgage market is at least partly due to the expectation that the Federal Reserve will bail out investors when asset bubbles deflate. "[A]n ideal monetary policy is one that facilitates and does not distort economic decision-making by individuals," says O'Driscoll.

  • Statement on new Fed rules by Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr.
  • "Subprime Monetary Policy," by Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr.
  • "Dissecting the Bailout Plan," by Alan Reynolds

• Make a Year-End Gift to Cato
  

  Cato depends solely on tax-deductible contributions from Sponsors who share our commitment to a free and prosperous society. When you support the Cato Institute, you are not just a contributor, you are a colleague. You'll be sent the latest Cato publications, reports, newsletters, and invitations to Cato events. You aren't merely supporting our mission, you become a part of Cato.

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• Cato Launches Innovative Web-based Freedom Programs for World Audience
  

  The Cato Institute believes that the promotion of the classical liberal ideals of liberty, free markets and peace is an essential effort. As a result, on December 12, Cato launched six innovative foreign-language web-based programs. These new programs will publish in Chinese, Portuguese, French, Persian, Kurdish, and on the continent of Africa in English and Swahili. They join our other three highly-successful programs in Spanish, Arabic and Russian. In addition to the sites, the various teams publish books, syndicate articles to the print media, and organize seminars for students, conferences for policy makers, and much more.

  • Cato International: Cato's Non-English Sites
  • "Giving Tanks," by John Fund, The Wall Street Journal

• Wage Growth and Social Security
  

  The conventional view that faster wage growth would improve Social Security's financial condition rests on several measures which have a short-term orientation that skews calculations. In "The Connection between Wage Growth and Social Security's Financial Condition," Cato scholar Jagadeesh Gokhale evaluates the connection by more comprehensive means and concludes that although faster wage growth is desirable in and of itself to increase general prosperity, it would likely worsen Social Security's overall financial condition. As such, early reforms of Social Security should receive higher priority under faster wage growth.

• The Case against Regional Growth-Management Planning
  

  Growth-management tools such as urban-growth boundaries, adequate-public-facilities ordinances, and growth limits all drive up the cost of housing by artificially restricting the amount of land available or the number of permits granted for home construction. In "The Planning Tax: The Case against Regional Growth-Management Planning," Cato scholar Randal O'Toole argue that this is, in effect, a planning tax that increases the costs of retail, commercial, and industrial developments as well as housing.

• The Public Education Tax Credit
  

  Educational freedom can most effectively be realized through nonrefundable education tax credits — for both parents' education costs for their own children and taxpayer donations to nonprofit scholarship funds. In "The Public Education Tax Credit," Cato scholar Adam B. Schaeffer argues that tax credits enjoy practical, legal, and political advantages over school vouchers.

• Putin's Party Wins Controversial Election
  

  Russian President Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party handily won parliamentary elections Sunday, guaranteeing him a parliamentary seat and allowing him to extend his influence when his presidential term ends in 2008. Cato scholar and former Putin advisor Andrei Illarionov argues: "The Russian parliamentary election became illegal and unlawful even before its official start. It meets none of the criteria of a free, fair, and democratic election. In effect it is not even an election."

  • Read Illarionov's full statement

• Chávez Plan Defeated
  

  Venezuelans on Monday rejected a democratic referendum that would have allowed President Hugo Chavez to seek re-election indefinitely and tightened socialism's grip on the nation. Cato scholar Ian Vásquez comments: "The rejection by a majority of Venezuelan voters of Hugo Chavez's proposal to turn their country into a socialist state is a signal to all of Latin America that the leftist leader does not in fact embody the aspirations of his people."

  • Read Vásquez's full statement
  • "Hugo Choice," by Gustavo Coronel, National Review (Online), November 30, 2007
  • "Corruption, Mismanagement, and Abuse of Power in Hugo Chávez's Venezue