New Research Shows Religious Liberty Drives Human Flourishing – And Why This Matters Now More Than Ever

This article was originally posted on Real Clear Religion.

The Trump Administration has prioritized the advancement of religious liberty for all faiths arguably more than any president in United States history. For example, at the United Nations General Assembly, President Donald Trump remarked, “These evil attacks are a wound on all humanity ... We must all work together to protect communities of every faith,” committing an additional $25 million to protect religious freedom and religious sites and relics.

Tragically, roughly 80% of the world lives in a religiously restricted environment. Even with all the billions of dollars invested in development by the World Bank and other multilateral institutions, many countries around the world maintain repressive regimes that persecute religious minorities.

My recently-published research in PLOS ONE investigated the importance of religious liberty quantitatively. First, contrary to public opinion, the median country experienced a 13% decline in religious liberty between 2006 and 2018. Moreover, these declines were concentrated among countries with stronger property rights – for example, Western Democracies. This is important to take note of, especially for the United States, because it underscores that religious liberty can deteriorate anywhere. In fact, it has declined by 35% in America between 1980 and 2018.

Second, drawing on a sample of over 150 countries surveyed between 2006 and 2018, I found that increases in religious liberty lead to improvements in human flourishing – an effect concentrated among religious minorities. The ability to compare the same country over time is important for identifying the causal effect of religious liberty over other potentially spurious factors. Moreover, controlling for measures of economic freedom (e.g., property rights) from the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom and other measures of economic activity strengthens the results.

To understand why religious liberty matters so much – even more than economic freedom – for predicting human flourishing, I gathered more characteristics about every country over time and included them in the statistical model. I found that religious liberty is an integral prerequisite for democratic governance, aiding the process for civic engagement and women’s empowerment and reducing the potential for public and political corruption. This shouldn’t come as a surprise: limiting the freedom to choose and arrive at even the most basic judgments about one’s identity stifles creativity and increases the potential for corruption by overly zealous and powerful bureaucrats.

Although the United States still ranks at the top in terms of religious liberty, we’ve seen a decline over the past two decades. If it weren’t for the Trump Administration, that decline would have arguably been accelerated. Particularly with the ongoing pandemic, many states and local governments have enacted restrictions that have either outright stopped faith-based institutions from gathering or penalizing them after the fact, despite some exemptions. And yet, other entities, including violent protests, have been allowed and in many cases promoted by local officials.

We’re also seeing a renewed viciousness and series of personal attacks against Amy Comey Barrett, Trump’s new nominee for the Supreme Court, and her Christian faith. If we care about religious liberty as a nation, then we need to be consistent in how we treat one another. Let these results be a reminder that religious liberty isn’t just fluff – there’s strong quantitative evidence supporting the view that it has a causal effect on human flourishing.

Christos A. Makridis is an assistant research professor at Arizona State University, a non-resident fellow at Baylor University, and a senior adviser at Gallup. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @camakridis.

How A Pro-Life President Saves Tens Of Thousands Of Lives

This article was originally published in The Federalist.

The battle for America’s most powerful office just inherited a whole new layer of intensity. On Sept. 18, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away, creating a new vacancy on the Supreme Court. Ginsberg had been a stalwart advocate and defender of abortion throughout her 27 years on the court.

The vacant seat represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the pro-life movement to achieve the highly sought-after reversal of Roe v Wade. While only time will tell whether this vacancy will be filled before 2021, the contrast between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden has never been clearer than it is today on issues of life and liberty.

Some of President Trump’s critics have sought to dilute the importance of the presidency to the pro-life cause, arguing that Trump does not deserve praise for his pro-life accomplishments. While such critics are right that abortion rates have declined over the past decade, these numbers reflect a wide array of confounding factors, ranging from a decline in fertility to an increased standard of living.

A Biden-Harris Presidency Would Fuel Abortion

But even if the abortion rate were genuinely trending in the right direction, that still would not justify supporting the most radical pro-abortion ticket in American history—that of Biden and running mate Kamala Harris.

While former Vice President Biden once supported certain restrictions on abortion, he has adopted a radical position alongside Harris. Their stance goes against even the most basic legislation, like the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would mandate providing care to an infant who has survived a gruesome abortion procedure and is born alive. The Biden/Harris ticket also supports abortion through all nine months of pregnancy and repealing the decades-long, bipartisan Hyde Amendment, which keeps federal tax dollars from funding abortions.

A Biden/Harris victory would lead to billions of dollars in abortion funding internationally, the nomination of pro-abortion justices throughout the federal court system including on the Supreme Court, the repeal of the Hyde amendment, leading to millions of dollars of federal funding directly for abortions, which combined would lead to millions of increased abortions over the foreseeable future. It would also squash the pro-life movement’s momentum and advance pro-abortion forces like Planned Parenthood, a major Harris supporter.

Yes, Presidents Matter to Pro-Life Victories

ritics of President Trump, most notably David French, have made several arguments against the importance of the presidential election for pro-life policy. Let’s investigate these one-by-one.

French claims presidents are irrelevant to the abortion rate. This is wrong at face value. For starters, President Trump signed an executive order in April 2017 that allows states to defund Planned Parenthood from federal Title X (family planning) funding, reversing an attempt by the Obama administration to exert federal authority over state policymakers.

President Trump also signed the Protect Life Rule, which ensures compliance with the statutory prohibition on funding programs that use abortion as a method of family planning and no longer permits Title X-funded family planning services at the same location abortion is provided. Among many other examples, French and his ilk also overlook the fundamental role that the executive office, especially the president, plays in creating a platform on important issues.

Consider, for instance, how President Trump completely shifted the dialogue about China over the past three years. The Obama administration focused on accommodation, hoping the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would choose a more democratic path.

But the Trump administration pointed out how China was taking advantage of the United States through unequal terms of trade, stealing intellectual property, and opening the country to systemic supply chain risk. President Trump has followed up with concrete policies, yet he also used the power of the presidency to create a platform for an argument that many pundits dismissed or overlooked.

Why would pro-life issues be any different? If anything, the fact that life is in part a cultural issue makes the power of the presidency even more important for gaining a platform. For example, earlier this year, President Trump became the first American president to speak at the annual March for Life, bringing a surge in media attention to the chronically underreported event and expanding the pro-life issue to a broader base of Americans.

Judges Absolutely Influence Changes in Law

Second, while French concedes that President Trump has appointed many pro-life judges, he argues judges are a force for stability, not change, in abortion law. This is a patently false claim.

While judges uphold the law of the land, unless they are activist judges that subtly try to change the law, court rulings constantly create precedent that leads to changes in policy. In other words, policy does not emerge out of thin air—it is based in part on court rulings.

Biden-appointed judges would be far more likely to strike down the most basic pro-life legislation and uphold the most aggressive pro-abortion legislation. Moreover, as we can see with Ginsberg’s passing, Trump has the opportunity to appoint yet another Supreme Court justice, which could lead to a substantial realignment in constitutional respect on the court.

Planned Parenthood Doesn’t Support Biden for Nothing

Conversely, pro-life state legislation would be more often reversed under Biden-appointed judges. Even Planned Parenthood is worried about four more years of a Trump presidency, specifically due to his appointment of federal judges. During the 2019 state legislative sessions, more than 290 bills restricting abortion have been filed in 45 states. Why would Planned Parenthood be worried if judges played such an insignificant role?

Third, some including French say state legislatures have more influence on abortion outcomes than Congress does. While state legislatures are clearly important, this again overlooks the interconnected nature of federal and state policymaking. Indeed, President Trump’s removal of the Obama administration policy that forced states to fund abortion is perhaps the most obvious illustrative example of federal policy affecting state policy.

That doesn’t even include the fact that a president can campaign for state policymakers running for Congress or for governor, thereby giving an extra spotlight to politicians with similar values. And, if President Trump does not win, Biden is on record saying he would abolish the filibuster, which under a Democrat Congress would lead to additional federal actions that direct billions of dollars of federal funding through states to radical leftist policies, including on abortion.

Repealing Roe Would Absolutely Reduce Abortions

Fourth, it’s often argued that overturning Roe v. Wade would not substantially affect the number of abortions. This is a speculative claim that contradicts much empirical evidence that shows law has the potential to influence culture towards what is good, beautiful, and true—and vice versa.

For example, prior to Roe v. Wade, only a couple of states had abortion laws. States stood on the pro-life side of the pendulum. Although we are in a different country today, it is much easier to make the argument scientifically about the personhood of the unborn child than ever before.

Furthermore, if most of pro-lifers’ recent success is in the states, then repealing Roe would allow states to move bills they haven’t passed due to the Supreme Court’s defense of abortion. Just look at former Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s vetoes of heartbeat bills. He justified them by stating that the Supreme Court would overrule him.

State legislatures generally won’t act if there is federal protection for a given policy matter. That means overturning Roe v. Wade would lead to significant state action, which could come to at least a 12.8 percent reduction in abortions. While French argues this number is insignificant, over time it represents millions of lives.

Law Influences Culture

Fifth is the argument most people don’t want an abortion. While it would be great if no one actually wanted to have an abortion, the Pew Center reports that 61 percent of adults report that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Regardless, we still don’t want to set laws that are morally, socially, or economically harmful. Culture and law are intimately linked. Legalizing abortion normalized it. Law creates boundaries to hold culture accountable.

Although culture is usually the catalyst for law, there are plenty of cases in which the opposite has been true. Consider, for instance, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The CRA ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination. While some racism remains, Sen. Tim Scott can now confidently say that his family has moved from “cotton to Congress in one lifetime.”

President Trump deserves credit for being the most active pro-life president in our country’s history. We don’t want to just “limit” abortion or delight in the fact that it is declining according to some estimates. If we believe that abortion constitutes a brutal murder, then we need to fight for its abolition, period, just like we don’t only seek lower numbers of human trafficking, but to abolish human trafficking altogether.

A Trump administration will continue to advance life. A Biden administration will push us into the dark ages of abortion on demand, no questions asked, even if the baby is just about to be born or has been born alive and survived, as Democrat politicians have openly stated.

Jonathan Jakubowski is the author of “Bellwether Blues, A Conservative Awakening of the Millennial Soul.” Christos A. Makridis is a research professor with Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business, a senior adviser at Gallup, and a non-resident fellow at Baylor University. Peter Range is the director of the Office for Life and Justice of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Toledo, and radio host of “Say Yes to Life” on Annunciation Radio of Northwest Ohio. These views are those of the authors and not on behalf of any affiliated institutions.

Amid coronavirus, the Great American Comeback is underway

This article was originally posted in The Hill.

Some people just placate; others get things done. Prior to the pandemic, real total household and nonprofit net wealth increased by 12.1 percent over the first 11 quarters of the Trump administration, concentrated among the bottom 50 percent of households that experienced a net increase of 47 percent; hourly wage growth for production and non-supervisory workers also hovered over 3 percent for over 17 consecutive quarters; and overall dependence on welfare declined as more people were lifted out of poverty.

But, the coronavirus pandemic has hit minorities, working class families and small businesses the hardest. While the CARES Act, and the subsequent executive order that President Trump signed following the failure for Congress to agree on a second round of stimulus, has helped inject some liquidity in peoples’ balance sheets, what we need is not more stimulus, but rather growth and long-run planning.

That’s why we have to keep building on the foundation that was developed prior to the pandemic.

The Trump administration knows that the secret to America’s greatness resides at the intersection of its people and timeless virtues. If people are empowered to learn, grow and contribute in their workplace and communities, we’ll all be better off for it. They’ve done this in three ways.

First, reshoring and modernizing our supply chain and industrial base. Although there is value in outsourcing some things, we cannot outsource everything. Trade is good, but only if it is reciprocal. Unfortunately, China, among others, has taken advantage of the United States by shipping low quality (and sometimes harmful) exports at superficially low prices that were only made possible through subsidies and regulatory arbitrage. That’s harmed the American worker in health and well-being, as well as labor market outcomes and a thinning of the middle class. By confronting these countries head on, rather than brushing past grievances under the rug, the Trump administration has increased employment in traditionally stagnant, or even declining, sectors beyond what people thought was possible. Moreover, regulatory reform has reduced the barriers to entry, strengthening competition and leading to greater wage growth.

Second, modernizing workforce development and investing in distressed communities. Given the pace of technological change, and the deterioration of traditional higher education and the college experience, we need to allow for and encourage other learning pathways, ranging from apprenticeships to coding bootcamps. That’s why the National Council for the American Worker (NCAW) has been such an integral ingredient in our approach towards upskilling in the 21st century. Already, the Pledge to America’s Workers has secured over 16 million new education and training opportunities for students and workers.

Even beyond these training and development opportunities, the designation of Opportunity Zones (OZ) from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has brought billions of dollars of investment into distressed communities by reducing the cost of investment in areas that need it most. For example, a recent report from the Council of Economic Advisers found that Qualified Opportunity Funds raised $75 billion in private capital that would have largely not been invested absent the OZ incentive. Moreover, OZs have contributed to a 1.1 percent increase in housing values, which totals an additional $11 billion in new wealth for homeowners in these areas. Given the growing disparities across cities and crowding out of the middle class, these gains are especially timely.

Third, technological dominance in artificial intelligence (AI) and work of the future. The Trump administration has consistently prioritized AI investments, ranging from reallocations of research and development (R&D) resources for strategic AI priorities to an expansion of talented workers within the federal government. Moreover, technological dominance doesn’t mean doing away with certain industries, such as agriculture and manufacturing, but rather embracing AI to make them even more productive and internationally competitive so that we can become more self-reliant as a nation.

Although some pundits in the media have been sounding the alarm about increases in coronavirus cases, these counts are much lower than some initial models predicted —not to mention that the pandemic was outside the United States’ control. Moreover, the fatality and hospitalizations rates have significantly over the past two months, particularly as immunity develops, better habits solidify and hospitals become better prepared. The battle for an economic and social revival is not yet over, but we’re running hard and in the right direction — let’s keep pressing forward.

Christos A. Makridis is an assistant research professor at Arizona State University, a non-resident fellow at Baylor University and a senior adviser at Gallup. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @camakridis.

Keep Cutting Those Regulations

This article was originally posted in National Review.

Up until now, federal interventions to mitigate the damage of the coronavirus pandemic, such as the March $2.2 trillion relief package and the executive order recently issued by President Trump in the absence of congressional action, have been short-term in nature. Stimulus checks and corporate bailouts might buy us time, but a long-term economic recovery requires something more. For several years, the Trump administration has been pursuing a long-term structural reform that fits the bill: streamlining regulations. Prior to the pandemic, regulatory reforms were working. In the post-pandemic economy, we may need them even more.

The Trump administration is the first in decades to follow through on its commitment toward genuine regulatory reform. Between 2017 and 2019, federal regulatory restrictions declined by 1.5 percent overall, rather than continuing to increase, as they have since 1996. The retail-trade and health-care sectors experienced the greatest declines, at approximately 9.5 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively.

While many, including us, believe that these policies have been highly beneficial to the economy, the current sky-high unemployment should spur us to revisit the question of who exactly has been benefiting from regulatory reform. Have the administration’s pro-business policies delivered wage gains for the American worker? Or is it mainly just big business benefiting? This question is given added urgency by the fact that the regions and companies receiving more loans from the Paycheck Protection Program were not necessarily the more economically distressed regions or companies.

There are plenty of reasons to believe that, broadly speaking, Trump’s economic policies were benefiting more than just the highest earners before the economic shutdown. Real total household and nonprofit net wealth increased by 12.1 percent over the first 11 quarters of the Trump administration. According to a report from the Council of Economic Advisers in January, these gains were concentrated among the bottom 50 percent of households, which experienced a net increase of 47 percent. Moreover, hourly wage growth for production and non-supervisory workers also hovered over 3 percent for more than 17 consecutive quarters. SNAP (food stamp) enrollment, among other measures of welfare dependence, declined considerably because of declines in the poverty rate.

While it is always difficult to assign credit for such things, in this case, it’s legitimate to give plenty to the Trump administration. Kevin Hassett, former chair of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, explained in 2018 that there is a structural break for many macroeconomic indicators between the latter years of the Obama administration and those from the Trump administration.

What’s more, there was nothing random about the strong economic gains enjoyed by blue-collar workers prior to COVID-19. Rather, it is linked to the administration’s focus on regulatory reform, an approach that needs to continue after the reopening of the economy.

A closer look at the data tells a consistent story. In original calculations using Bureau of Economics data and QuantGov, a machine-learning and policy-analysis tool developed by Mercatus Center researchers, we found that the industries that saw the greatest declines in regulatory restrictions enjoyed the greatest growth in compensation per worker. Specifically, we put together data on 70 industry sub-sectors. In addition to finding that the 2017–19 decline in regulatory restrictions came at a time when real compensation per worker grew by 3 percent, we found that each 1-percentage point decline in regulatory restrictions from 2017 to 2019 came with a 0.05-percentage-point increase in real-compensation growth per worker.

Is that big or small? Here’s another way to think about it: The Trump administration’s regulatory reforms have arguably accounted for roughly one-tenth of the overall growth in compensation per worker we saw over these years. Given that income grows for many reasons, ranging from technological progress to competitive forces, anything with a sizable, measurable impact is a big deal.

Today, policies that promote economic growth and innovation are especially important — particularly if very generous unemployment-insurance benefits continue to discourage reentry into the labor force after the next round of stimulus. Of course, some regulation is required for competitive markets and a just society. But where we draw the line matters.

Thanks to the Trump administration’s regulatory experiment, it’s becoming clearer that regulatory and tax reforms benefit the American worker — not just the rich. Continuing these reforms would help ensure that U.S. citizens are back on the path to economic recovery once the crisis ends.

Christos A. Makridis is a research assistant professor with Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business, a senior adviser at Gallup, and a non-resident fellow at Baylor University. Patrick A. McLaughlin is a senior research fellow and director of policy analytics with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

It’s union power, not safety issues, that’s determining which US schools reopen this fall

This article was originally published in the New York Post.

It’s back-to-school season, but millions of students won’t be going back to the classroom. Teachers are fighting tooth and nail to prevent reopening public schools for in-person learning — in the name of safety. Yet our just-released study suggests that these reopening decisions have more to do with influence from teachers’ unions than safety concerns.

In New York City, the Department of Education’s proposal to offer families a hybrid of part-time in-person instruction and remote learning starting Sept. 10 met with fierce opposition. Teachers’ groups poured into the streets to protest the plan, including with props such as fake body bags. Mayor de Blasio pushed back the opening after threatened strikes.

It’s happening nationwide. New data published at Education Week indicate that 78 percent of the nation’s 50 largest public districts aren’t planning to reopen with any in-person instruction.

Using data on the reopening decisions of 835 public districts covering about 38 percent of all students enrolled in K-12 public schools in the country, our study finds that school districts in places with stronger teachers’ unions are much less likely to offer full-time, in-person instruction this fall.

For example, our models indicate that school districts in states without right-to-work laws are 14 percentage points less likely to reopen in person than those in states with such laws, which prevent unions from requiring membership.

A 10 percent increase in union power is associated with a 1.3 percentage-point lower probability of reopening in person. In Florida, for example, 79 percent of 38 school districts in the Education Week dataset are planning to offer full-time in-person instruction to all students. However, in New York, a state with much stronger teachers’ unions, none of the 21 school districts included in the dataset are planning to do the same.

We also find that a one percentage point increase in union membership at the state level is associated with a 1.5 percentage point lower probability of reopening in person. Then, too, a 10 percent rise in union workers at the county level is associated with around a one percentage point decline in the probability of reopening in person in the fall.

These results are remarkably consistent across various analytic models and even after controlling for differences in county demographics, including age, gender, marital status, race, population, education, political affiliation, household income and COVID-19 cases and deaths per capita.

By contrast, reopening decisions are unrelated to COVID-19 risk as measured by recent cases per capita and deaths per capita in the county. That is also consistent with recent evidence that the biggest factor in what people believe about the pandemic is political affiliation — not COVID-19 risk or even demographic factors, such as age and race.

None of this means that teachers’ unions have bad intentions. Pushing against reopening schools in person could make sense from cost-benefit analysis, if it minimizes health risks for union members while maintaining about the same level of benefits in terms of job security and wages. In fact, virtual instruction can mean ­more benefits for union members: It can reduce their child-care responsibilities, hours of direct instruction and commute times.

The problem is that teachers aren’t the only stakeholders in the reopening debate. Keeping schools closed hurts families that need in-person options. Plus, ­remote learning provided by public districts may turn out to be a disaster for many students already falling behind.

A better solution: Governments should fund students directly, so they can take their education dollars to the schools of their choice. After all, education funding is supposed to be for educating students, not protecting traditional public schools when other options are available. School districts have the power to choose their own reopening plans. Let’s give families a choice, too.

Civil unrest isn't just fueling political partisanship — it's undermining the economic recovery too

Originally appeared in The Hill, September 3, 2020

The United States is suffering from not only a public health crisis, but also an identity crisis. Many of the principles that were once honored are now under attack. Basic rules, such as law and order, have been characterized as racist and sources of systemic injustice.

While we need to vigorously continue the search for a vaccine and pursue smart policies that allow for a permanent reopening of the economy, we also need to obtain safety and security in our cities once again. Already, many people are fleeing the cities. In addition to the impact that remote work has had on the decision about where to live, more residents are growing concerned about the safety for themselves and their families—and “voting with their feet” by moving elsewhere.

But, what about the small businesses that cannot just pick up their bags and go?

To understand the quantitative effects that civil unrest has been having on the economy, I collected data on small businesses (e.g., employment and hours worked) from HomeBase and the intensity of Black Lives Matter riots from Google Trends across 47 metropolitan areas. Although BLM search queries are an imperfect measure for the intensity of riots, it is a reasonable proxy if residents respond to civil unrest by searching online for information in their area either out of support or fear.

Using these data between June and August, I found that a 10 percent increase in BLM search intensity is associated with a nearly percentage point decline in the number of hours worked among employees in the business, relative to pre-pandemic levels. Results are similar when using other measures of small business activity, such as business shutdowns or overall employment. Moreover, results are similar when focusing on a narrower window of time (e.g., July to August).

Why is there such a strong negative association? For starters, small businesses are concentrated in the retail and hospitality sectors. If people are afraid to go out to eat or shop, then consumption on local goods will decline. Even from a practical perspective, we’ve seen how many of these protests, in addition to turning violent, have even led participants to halt traffic and block off roads. And, since economic sentiment is a powerful driver of demand for retail services, uncertainty and civil strife is likely to lead to more precautionary behavior among residents and prospective investors.

These are not just conservative talking points. Even Portland’s police chief has pointed out that the violence has taken away from the BLM movement, prompting many people to turn away from the movement — even if they don’t want to publicly voice their reservations.

Unfortunately, what we’re seeing unfold before our eyes is not a new phenomenon and should not come as a surprise. For example, recent research found that peaceful protests from the civil rights movement led to greater political support for civil rights, whereas the violent protests had the opposite effects. Moreover, others have found that violent riots during the 1960s led to persistently lower values for black-owned property. In fact, these declines are estimated to have contributed to a 10 percent loss in the total value of black-owned residential property in urban areas.

One of the big differences that we’re stuck with today – for better or for worse – is the presence of social media, which can amplify some of the loudest (and most harmful) voices. For example, my research has found that the decline in consumption over the pandemic was roughly twice as large because of the fear-factor that spread throughout social media. If we were all behaving “rationally” based on our local experiences, consumption would not have fallen so much. The same goes for these riots: bad news spreads more rapidly, causing even more fear and uncertainty. If we want to have a genuine economic recovery, we’re going to need to do more than just find a vaccine. We will need to return law and order to our cities so that people feel safe and secure.

Fortunately, we don’t need to repeat the mistakes of the past. We have timeless principles to stand on that have endured even more tumultuous times, ranging from the domestic implosion during the Civil War to the threat of Nazi Germany during World War II. If we learn from the past and listen to one another, we’ll emerge out of the current economic and social crisis even stronger than before.

Christos A. Makridis is an assistant research professor at Arizona State University, a non-resident fellow at Baylor University, and a senior adviser at Gallup. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @camakridis.