Policy Research

  "There is significant evidence that reductions in marginal state tax rates encourage state economic growth ...Rates on productive behavior should be reduced." Murphy Commission, Policy Foundation project,1998   (April 2014) The Murphy Commission, a...

  Second in a multi-part series on term limits, approved by the people in 1992 and 2004.   (March 2014) The number of female General Assembly members has nearly tripled since the people of Arkansas...

(February 2014) Most articles filed by education reporters focus on traditional K-12 public school districts.1  An unreported story is the increase in home-schooling, part of the alternative Arkansas school choice market.   The number of Arkansas home school students has increased from...

Prudence should guide fiscal policy. Public services should be provided in an efficient, cost-effective manner.  Savings should be used to encourage economic growth and make Arkansas competitive in terms of jobs creation and income growth.  The Murphy...

First in a multi-part series on term limits, approved by the people in 1992 and 2004.   (February 2014) The number of General Assembly members who list "attorney" or "lawyer" as their current or former...

"The most callused aspect of the current education monopoly in Arkansas is that it willingly and deliberately forces children--except those whose parents have wealth--to attend bad schools. And it does so with financial resources taken...

(January 2014) Proponents of nationalized medical insurance long ago conceded the problem of adverse selection, i.e., buyers and sellers with asymmetric information1 create an unsustainable risk pool with few healthy and many unhealthy enrollees.  The federal Affordable Care Act...

"As part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) that President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010, states now have the option to expand their Medicaid programs so that the programs provide...

  "As part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) that President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010, states now have the option to expand their Medicaid programs so that the programs...

“Reduce the state's income tax…repeal the state's capital gains tax.” Arkansas Policy Foundation, Murphy Commission project, 1998   "(Arkansas) revenues are expanding because the business cycle’s current state is expansion, not contraction." (Policy Foundation research memo,...