“The reality of a Mexican in the face of power is reminiscent of the famous exchange between former Argentinian president Carlos Menem and the mother of singer Facundo Cabral: reportedly, Menem warmly greeted the singer’s mother with pleasantries: “Madam, I am a great admirer of your son. Please tell me if there is anything I ca...
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A 20 percent VAT tax on food vouchers in Bulgaria has been blocked, thanks to the efforts of Bulgarian Libertarian Society (BLS), an Atlas Network partner in the country’s capital city of Sofia. Food vouchers are a common employee benefit in Bulgaria, and research shows that distribution increases motivation and job satisfaction...
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When Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo were announced as two of this year’s Nobel Prize winners, it prompted a fresh flurry of public critiques of their work in development economics. From voices as diverse as Oxfam’s Duncan Green and Marginal Revolution’s Alex Tabarrok, many economists and aid experts have cautioned against pin...
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In 1979, Fouad Ajami wrote that Egypt finds herself between her “pride and place, between her limited material resources and her unbounded psychological esteem for herself, between her old glory and her current poverty." Forty years later, Egyptians are still immersed in the same contrast, and their struggle to leave poverty is...
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The Costa Rican Legislature recently approved a bill that will cut luxury pensions to over 4,000 retirees. The bill takes aim at a group of pensioners dubbed “Ticos Con Coronas,” (Costa Ricans with Crowns) who receive an average monthly pension of US$4,495, with some receiving more than US$24,000 per month. Instituto de Desarrol...
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VP of Training and Events to assume new executive role
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Bendukidze Free Market Center (BFMC), an Atlas Network partner in Ukraine, recently produced Зима, що нас змінила: шість років після Майдану (The Winter That Changed Us: Six Years After Maidan), a new documentary about 2014’s Revolution of Dignity, which was sparked by the Maidan Massacre.
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On November 9th, Instituto Acton’s Poverty University brought scholars, think tank leaders, and other friends of liberty to a day-long forum in Tucumán, Argentina. The program, which focused on ways to alleviate poverty through free enterprise and investment, featured screenings of the PovertyCure lecture series, lectures from h...
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Government spending, taxation, and the size of government-controlled enterprises in Lebanon are large enough to have a measurable impact on the country’s economic freedom rankings, according to the latest Economic Freedom Audit conducted by Canada’s Fraser Institute in partnership with the Lebanese Institute for Market Studies (...
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Free-market energy reforms facilitated by the Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI), an Atlas Network partner in Vilnius, have helped Lithuania attain the 11th spot on the World Bank’s 2020 Doing Business Index. This year’s ranking bumps Lithuania from 14th place primarily because of significantly improved access to electricit...
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Atlas Network increases global prosperity by strengthening a network of independent partner organizations that promote individual freedom and are committed to identifying and removing barriers to human flourishing. Our vision is of a peaceful and prosperous world in which everyone is free to live, associate, and exchange, and in...
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Thirty-one cities in Spain have achieved “acceptable” scores in Economic Freedom, according to a new index by the Madrid-based Fundación para el Avance de la Libertad, also known as Fundalib (Foundation for the Advancement of Liberty). The Municipal Index of Economic Freedom for Spain’s Cities evaluates Spain’s major cities and...
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According to Enrique Krauze, Mexico's prominent classical-liberal intellectual, new "winds of authoritarianism" are sweeping across Latin America, characterized by all-mighty caudillos who ascend to political power via democratic means, but who then seek to concentrate control over a tightly knit polity of order and moral virtue...
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The explosion of podcasting in recent years has been unprecedented for media in terms of both audience growth and profitability. Podcasts have become a main source of news and opinion, with roughly 26 percent of Americans tuning in regularly. Still, with most listeners being between the ages of 12 and 25, the podcast boom has on...
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In this article Center for Latin America Fellow Gonzalo Schwarz analyzes the state of social mobility in Uruguay and how there is a need for the incoming government to focus more on social mobility instead of inequality as a key policy priority. Doing so would enable more entrepreneurship and a focus on work as the main vehicle...
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In November, Atlas Network's Matt Warner, Casey Pifer, and Vale Sloane joined hundreds of aid organizations in Brussels for the annual AidEx event. Billed as the global humanitarian and development event of the year, the conference attracts more than 2,500 visitors and a large presence from most of the major foreign aid agencies...
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Last weekend, a new cohort of think tank leaders gathered at Atlas Network’s first Global Influencer Summit in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania—a historic town in the suburbs of Philadelphia. The summit centered around key management and leadership topics for senior leaders of think tanks. Thirty participants, representing twenty diff...
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Thoughts by Tom G. Palmer, Atlas Network Executive Vice President for International Programs and George M. Yeager Chair for Advancing Liberty
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Sharing the message of liberty was a key theme of Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner 2019, which brought together more than 800 liberty champions from six continents for two days of conference sessions, networking, and building new opportunities for change around the world. The Foundation for Economic Freedom, located in Quezon City...
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The Property and Environment Research Center and the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy were both awarded grants of $75,000 at Atlas Network’s inaugural U.S. Investors Summit for Liberty, which gave ten pre-selected, U.S.-based organizations a platform to compete for a total of $500,000 in general support funding. The t...
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The Foundation for Economic Freedom, an Atlas Network partner in Quezon City, Philippines, has won Atlas Network’s 2019 Templeton Freedom Award for their work to end restrictions on agricultural land patents, liberating billions of dollars in land values and potentially transforming the country’s entire agricultural sector. The...
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Students for Liberty Brazil has been named the winner of Atlas Network’s 2019 Smith Student Outreach Award for their Market Revolution project. “This is the boldest move our organization has ever made,” explained Andre Migliore Freo of SFL Brazil. The campaign was a multi-pronged strategy aimed at changing the public’s opinion o...
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Anuki Premachandra of Advocata Institute has won the 2019 John Blundell Elevator Pitch Competition at Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner 2019. Eva Christensen of Mannkal Economic Education Foundation took second place, and Ines Marrache of Asociación de Contribuyentes del Perú took third place.
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Atlas Network congratulates Connor Boyack for winning the 2019 Think Tank Shark Tank competition with their project blank. The ceremony was held during Atlas Network’s annual Liberty Forum and Freedom Dinner. Think Tank Shark Tank offers three think tank leaders the opportunity to pitch exciting new projects to a panel of judges...
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Quota, a short film by Pacific Legal Foundation that challenges systemic race-based discrimination in Connecticut schools, has been named the winner of the 2019 Lights, Camera, Liberty Film Festival.
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Afghanistan Economic and Legal Studies Organization (AELSO), an Atlas Network partner, is winning the battle of ideas in a very difficult part of the world. “Whenever someone participates in one of our events for the first time, we get a lot of criticism,” explained Khalid Ramizy, Executive Director of AELSO. “They say, ‘these v...
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A single name was enough to enrage powerful dictators: Bukovsky. Vladimir Bukovsky was a tower of strength, with the integrity never to buckle and the courage to endure. The word dissident barely suffices to describe him. He was interrogated and then expelled from university at 19 for attending illegal poetry readings and for cr...
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Freedom Research Association (FRA), an Atlas Network partner in Ankara, Turkey, has successfully operated a massive open online course about the rule of law and its importance. Known as ROLA MOOC, or Rule of Law Massive Online Open Course, the digital program is helping students deepen their understanding of the law and the impo...
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Poverty & Freedom, a new book edited by Atlas Network president Matt Warner, demonstrates how making the world more prosperous starts with supporting locally-led initiatives that remove institutional barriers to freedom—and give people greater choices over their own future.
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Centre for Development and Entrepreneurship Great Lakes (CDE), an Atlas Network partner based in Burundi, recently launched two new programs: Great Lakes Academy, which seeks to influence the climate of ideas in Burundi, and the Great Lakes Entrepreneurship Academy, which is designed to educate the next generation of entrepreneu...
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