Loosening current licensing restrictions on the range of services that nurses, physician assistants, dental hygienists and pharmacists are permitted to perform would help patients on balance, because the additional safety risks would be small compared to the decreased costs in waiting time and fees.

Bans on the short selling of financial securities, such as stocks and government bonds, lead to prices that are further, on average, from their fundamental values.

Question A: Because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been without the stimulus bill.

Question B:

Taking into account all of the ARRA’s economic consequences — including the economic costs of raising taxes to pay for the spending, its effects on future spending, and any other likely future effects — the benefits of the stimulus will end up exceeding its costs.

Local ordinances that limit rent increases for some rental housing units, such as in New York and San Francisco, have had a positive impact over the past three decades on the amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing in cities that have used them.

Question A:

The typical chief executive officer of a publicly traded corporation in the U.S. is paid more than his or her marginal contribution to the firm's value.

Question B:

Mandating that U.S. publicly listed corporations must allow shareholders to cast a non-binding vote on executive compensation was a good idea.

One of the leading reasons for rising U.S. income inequality over the past three decades is that technological change has affected workers with some skill sets differently than others.

Question A:

If the US replaced its discretionary monetary policy regime with a gold standard, defining a "dollar" as a specific number of ounces of gold, the price-stability and employment outcomes would be better for the average American.

Question B: There are many factors besides US inflation risk that influence the current dollar price of gold.

In general, using more congestion charges in crowded transportation networks — such as higher tolls during peak travel times in cities, and peak fees for airplane takeoff and landing slots — and using the proceeds to lower other taxes would make citizens on average better off.

A tax on the carbon content of fuels would be a less expensive way to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions than would a collection of policies such as “corporate average fuel economy” requirements for automobiles.

Question A: All else equal, making drugs illegal raises street prices for those drugs because suppliers require extra compensation for the risk of incarceration and other punishments.

Question B: The Netherlands restrictions on “soft drugs” combined with a moderate tax aimed at deterring their consumption would have lower social costs than continuing to prohibit use of those drugs as in the US. (Click here for a summary of the Netherlands restrictions.)

Question A:

Credible assumptions for inflation, GDP growth and primary budget deficits in Italy imply that either the Debt-to-GDP ratio in Italy would increase sharply if Italian interest rates on 10-year government debt remained at the November 30 level of around 7 percent or Italy would lose access to the bond market.

Question B:

Absent outside help to deal with runs, such as a pledge of fiscal support from Germany or an unlimited commitment by the ECB to buy bonds, there is no spending-and-tax plan Italy can announce that would be credible enough to hold its interest rates low enough to stabilize its Debt-to-GDP ratio.

There are no consequential distortions created by the tax preference that favors obtaining health insurance through employers.

Federal mandates that government purchases should be “buy American” unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, have a significant positive impact on U.S. manufacturing employment.

Question A: Eliminating tax deductions for non-investment personal interest expenses (e.g., on mortgages), with reductions in personal tax rates that are both budget neutral and keep the burden of taxes by income group the same, would lead to more efficient financing decisions by individuals.

Question B: Reducing the deductibility of interest expenses for non-financial businesses to equalize the overall tax cost of debt and equity financing, while using the extra revenue to reduce personal and corporate tax rates in a budget neutral fashion that also keeps the burden of taxes the same, would lead to more efficient financing decisions by firms.

Question A: Unless they have inside information, very few investors, if any, can consistently make accurate predictions about whether the price of an individual stock will rise or fall on a given day.

Question B: Plausible expectations of future dividends, discounted using a plausible risk-adjusted interest rate, explain well the level of stock prices for recently listed internet businesses in 1999.

The Chinese government pursues policies that keep the renminbi's exchange rate vis à vis the dollar lower than it would be if the currency floated without those policies.

Public school students would receive a higher quality education if they all had the option of taking the government money (local, state, federal) currently being spent on their own education and turning that money into vouchers that they could use towards covering the costs of any private school or public school of their choice (e.g. charter schools).

Question A: All else equal, permanently raising the federal marginal tax rate on ordinary income by 1 percentage point for those in the top (i.e., currently 35%) tax bracket would increase federal tax revenue over the next 10 years.

Question B:

The cumulative budget shortfalls in the US over the next 10 years can be reduced by half (or more) purely by increasing the federal marginal tax rate on ordinary income for those in the top tax bracket.

All else equal, the Fed's new plan to increase the maturity of its Treasury holdings will boost expected real GDP growth for calendar year 2012 by at least one percentage point.