Essays & News

  Prison cells are a fascinating economic laboratory, where for over a century thriving markets in goods, services, labor—and even money—have existed. Nowhere else do you find so many people craving entertainment and consumer goods, alongside so many innovative individuals willing to bend the rules to supply them. Everyday prison life also nicely illustrates how […]

  In recent decades, the G20, together with the OECD, has sought to establish global regulatory frameworks aimed at managing the economy, expanding reporting and surveillance obligations, and tightening control over the population. Much of this effort has focused on extracting as much tax revenue as possible from businesses and individuals, while weaving a tight […]

  The Netherlands has long been an innovative, competitive and prosperous mid-sized European democracy. It is currently the fifth-largest economy in the European Union and the 18th-largest in the world. The Dutch consider themselves “big among the small,” holding disproportionate influence within organizations like the EU and NATO. Yet political deadlock now grips the nation; […]

  Europe once again stands at the edge of a technological revolution—this time, in quantum computing. Widely regarded as the next tech frontier, quantum promises capabilities far beyond today’s supercomputers, with applications in drug discovery, battery development, communications, navigation, defense, and cybersecurity. As the United States and China race ahead in artificial intelligence, Brussels sees quantum […]

  In May 2023, artificial intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton parted ways with tech giant Google after working there for more than 10 years. The Nobel Physics Prize winner warned against the development of AI-powered chatbot technology, which is largely based on his research on neural networks. People, Mr. Hinton said, are already so flooded with false […]