Stephen Mihm

Silicon Valley Won't Last Forever, and Texas Knows It

Is Texas really a serious rival to California as a destination for high-tech? The growing exodus of banner companies -– Oracle Corp., Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co., Tesla Inc.'s Space-X and others -– suggests that there’s something to the idea. Still, skeptics rightly point out that plenty of…

COVID-19 Leaves Less Change in Our Pockets, Literally

As if a deep recession and a never-ending pandemic wasn’t enough, the US now faces another crisis: a coin shortage. Thanks to the lockdowns, fewer coins are in circulation, leaving businesses unable to make change when customers hand over paper money. Coin shortages, though, are nothing new. In…

The Ugly History of Blaming Ethnic Groups for Outbreaks

As the coronavirus outbreak grows in scale and scope, a nasty side effect spreads: discrimination. Inside China, people from Wuhan have been treated like lepers. Outside, we’re seeing numerous reports of verbal and physical abuse aimed at ethnic Chinese, and an aversion to Chinese restaurants and…

Immigration Has Long-Term Benefits

When President Donald Trump said last week that the US was "full," he was reprising one of the dominant themes of his presidency: Immigration is harmful. The facts suggest otherwise. Not only do many studies show that immigrants are a net positive for the economy, their contribution amplifies with…

Harvard’s Other Controversial Admissions Policy

It’s no secret why conservatives are lending financial and political support to the Asian-Americans suing Harvard for discrimination in admissions. They want to kill affirmative action and replace it with a “race-blind” system. Spare us. If you want to destroy discrimination in college…

Stop Obsessing About Countries’ Reliance on Foreign Financing

As a growing number of emerging markets teeter on the brink of crisis, we’re hearing more and more about “original sin.” No, this isn’t about Adam and Eve’s transgressions. The concept, coined by economists Barry Eichengreen and Ricardo Hausmann, refers to the inability of most nations — and…

Does Corruption Matter to Voters?

The idea of making corruption an issue hasn’t always been a winning strategy. In the 19th-century United States, most corruption was usually entangled with the petty graft, bribes and kickbacks associated with local machine politics in the nation’s fast-growing cities. This kind of corruption,…

US Immigration Debate’s Ugliness is Nothing New

The Census Bureau reported this month that the white population in much of the U.S. is dying off more quickly than it is being replaced. By contrast, among Hispanics, births continue to exceed deaths. The figures for 2017 are further evidence of a profound demographic shift that is predicted to…