This book discussesincreasing the earnings of poor people in poor countries from their innovation, knowledge, and creative skills.

Minimum wage laws do harm in the short run and in the long run. People acquire lots of valuable human capital in their first jobs. The longer those first jobs are pushed out of reach, the longer it takes low-skill workers to develop crucial capacities that can put them on a promising career path.

While those who wish to make participation in the American Community Survey voluntary raise important points and concern for individual privacy is paramount, the government can best serve the American people by continuing to gather high quality survey data through the ACS.

Education leaders often act lazily, blaming union contracts and federal regulation rather than confronting the problems they have the capacity to solve.

Ineffective drugs take lives, waste money and make precious cures useless. Drugs have been recycled after their expiry date; they have been contaminated with fatal toxins; they have been made too weak or with no active ingredient at all.

Last month, the Drug Enforcement Administration abruptly revoked the narcotics license held by the distributor Cardinal Health, preventing that firm from shipping prescription pain drugs to thousands of Florida pharmacies and hospitals. It's the latest tactic in the DEA's struggle to stem the illicit use of prescription painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin.

A candidate's strengths can also be his weaknesses. Take the case of Rick Santorum.

Roughly 10% of all organ transplants in the world are obtained on the black market. A new investigation by puts a brutal face on that underground world.