In the most recent Education Outlook, AEI scholar Rick Hess and Taryn Hochleitner explain how the inflation of college rankings contributes to a false sense of exclusivity and rising tuitions.

Financial crises, and their aftermaths, can pose greater challenges to central bank independence than the more traditional pain associated with combating inflation.

Attempts at austerity and deleveraging in Europe have converted an economic problem into a political dilemma, with leftist governments rising against Germany's austerity-laced rescue packages. Germany now faces a tough economic decision that will involve choosing between a breakup of the current euro system and a movement toward a common fiscal policy in Europe.

Despite frequent, dire warnings about the unsustainability of government budget deficits in the United States, Europe and Japan, investors are lining up to lend to some governments at very low interest rates.

Judging from the response to the Fed's three-year battle against systemic financial collapse and the risk of deflation, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that financial crises and their aftermaths can pose greater challenges to central bank independence than the more traditional pain associated with combating inflation.

In his latest Economic Outlook, AEI economist John Makin warns us of Three Dangerous Myths about Monetary Policy which, if acted upon, could disrupt world markets.

Many commentators argue that uncertainty about taxes, government spending and other policy matters deepened the recession of 2007-2009 and slowed the recovery. To investigate this issue we develop a new index of policy-related economic uncertainty and estimate its dynamic relationship to output, investment and employment.

China is heading for a hard landing in 2012 or 2013 for three reasons: Excess capacity tied to overstimulation of investment in export industries and weak domestic demand growth, a bursting speculative bubble in its real estate sector, and a sharp slowdown in global growth.