Large Bureaucracy Administration
The Small Business Administration has been responsible for implementing two marquee programs as part of the federal government’s pandemic response: the $813 billion Paycheck Protection Program and the $367 billion Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. In “Assessing the Small Business Administration’s Pandemic Programs: Not Good Enough, Even for Government Work” (Legal Policy Bulletin no. 7), William Yeatman finds that both programs reflect gross expansions of dysfunctional frameworks that were already troubled before the pandemic.

Depressing Dirigisme
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and rising U.S.-China tensions, American policymakers have again embraced “industrial policy,” a once-discarded idea for governmental quasi-management of the economy. In a new working paper, “Questioning Industrial Policy: Why Government Manufacturing Plans Are Ineffective and Unnecessary,” Scott Lincicome and Huan Zhu offer a framework for understanding the history of industrial policy and why its revival should be unwelcome.

Green Trade
Talks at the World Trade Organization over removing tariffs on environmental goods began in 2014 but have since stalled. In “Free Trade in Environmental Goods Will Increase Access to Green Tech” (Free Trade Bulletin no. 80), James Bacchus and Inu Manak urge the new Biden administration to prioritize such trade as part of its commitment to fighting climate change.

Drive Sober
As part of his wide-ranging research into claims that illegal immigrants threaten the safety of Americans, Alex Nowrasteh together with Michael Howard has compiled the evidence on drunk driving in “Drunk Driving Deaths and Illegal Immigration” (Immigration Research and Policy Brief no. 20). Nationwide, they find no statistical relationship between higher illegal immigrant population shares and drunk driving deaths.