News that the World Bank’s president, Jim Yong Kim, is calling it quits to join the private sector has heightened the debate over what to do about foreign aid inefficacy. Kim made clear in an email to staff that, in his view, the “massive development finance gap” in low-income countries is best addressed by private investment. K...
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Atlas Network is proud to announce the creation of Rainbow@Atlas, a special fund dedicated to the principles of inclusivity, tolerance, and diversity. We believe that no one should ever be excluded from participating in the benefits of liberty on the basis of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Rainbow@Atla...
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Atlas Network’s new Center for Latin America promotes peace, justice, and opportunity for all in a region in the midst of volatile change. Building on decades of collaborative work in the region, Atlas Network will strengthen and leverage a partner network of more than 80 independent civil society organizations based in the coun...
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It is a joy to take part in a festival of liberty, a truly liberal event. “Festival” is really the right word, because liberty is truly something to be celebrated, its realization a cause for joy and an occasion for happiness. And the occasion for happiness is not merely our own freedom, but the freedom of other people as well....
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On Dec. 1, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, better known as AMLO, will become the next President of Mexico for the six-year term of 2018-2024. His stunning victory represents a watershed moment in the nation’s transition to a modern democracy. AMLO won with almost 53 percent of the popular vote; and his party, Morena, was able to ca...
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Without profit motive, can nonprofit leaders be as innovative and successful as their profit-seeking counterparts? As it turns out, there’s a type of motivation that transcends the drive for profit and it can influence the behavior of nonprofit leaders towards improving results as well. It’s called social comparison—and research...
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For many in the United States, whether they be liberal interventionists or conservative defense hawks, military spending cuts are radical and fall far outside of the Overton window. In 2017, the total military expenditure by the U.S. was $610 billion, the largest in the world. The Institute for Spending Reform (ISR), an Atlas Ne...
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In late June, the Lithuanian parliament consolidated the tax base for the country’s social security contributions and reduced the contribution rate. This reform was a part of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute’s (LFMI) project within Atlas Network’s Leveraging Indices for Free Enterprise Policy Reform, or LIFE, program. The re...
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Atlas Network is excited to announce the finalists of this year’s Think Tank Shark Tank — Europe competition, which is sponsored by the Smith Family Foundation and will be held during Europe Liberty Forum from May 29-30 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Three think tank professionals will compete in a showcase of the region’s most excitin...
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More than 250 people from 30 countries gathered in Jakarta, Indonesia from February 10-11 for Asia Liberty Forum 2018. Hosted by Atlas Network with local co-host the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies (CIPS), the conference featured several thought-provoking breakout sessions examining the trajectory of liberty, property right...
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For the first time in the history of modern Mexican democracy a credible, relevant, and effective anticorruption legal infrastructure exists. It holds Mexican politicians accountable and keeps them honest from the get-go, all thanks to Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad (IMCO)’s revolutionary “3for3” campaign. As of July...
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The winner of Atlas Network’s 2017 Think Tank Shark Tank competition is Alexandre Pesey, founder of Institut de Formation Politique (France), for his pitch to create a civic incubator (“The incubator Le Coquetier”) designed to identify, select, train, coach, and guide intellectual entrepreneurs across France. Through the project...
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Awarded since 2004, the Templeton Freedom Award is named for the late investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton. The award annually honors his legacy by identifying and recognizing the most exceptional and innovative contributions to the understanding of free enterprise, and the public policies that encourage prosperity, in...
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The winner of the Europe Think Tank Shark Tank competition is Petar Čekerevac – executive manager of Libertarian Club Libek in Serbia – for his organization’s proposed Lighthouse Outlet project to establish an online media outlet bringing together the brightest libertarian minds of Serbia. The proposed online platform will serve...
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One of the improvised strongholds during Hungary's anti-Soviet revolution in October 1956 was the Corvin cinema in central Budapest. Here, ordinary citizens joined hometown soldiers in a spontaneous attempt to take back their government. More recently, the site served as a memorable stop and cause for reflection for a gathering...
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A major spectacle accompanied UEFF’s submission of a constitutional complaint to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, which was signed by 55 People’s Deputies (Members of Ukrainian Parliament). Two UEFF founders – Maryan Zablotskyy and Sergiy Fursa – publicly submitted the complaint to the Constitutional Court, joined by People’...
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New research supported by Atlas Network demonstrates impact of ease of doing business reforms on poverty.
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Today’s top-down, economic development aid model is unavoidably flawed. The nature of economic development requires idiosyncratic solutions that can’t be successfully designed or administered by outsiders. Instead, locally grown solutions aimed at transforming the institutional environment in favor of market growth, primarily th...
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Awarded since 2004, the Templeton Freedom Award is named for the late investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton. The award annually honors his legacy by identifying and recognizing the most exceptional and innovative contributions to the understanding of free enterprise and the public policies that encourage prosperity, inn...
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During Africa Liberty Forum 2017, more than 125 influencers and think tank professionals from 16 countries gathered to discuss the best and the brightest work breaking down the barriers to prosperity and opportunity on the continent. Sponsored by Atlas Network with organizing host the South Africa-based Free Market Foundation (F...
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Spain has long had excellent think tanks that specialize in the economic aspects of freedom, and carry out the crucial work of producing high-level academic, theoretical papers. In 2015, though, a group of Spanish libertarians were concerned about the need to develop a more engaging approach toward civil society — a task that we...
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The Greek economy has deteriorated steadily during the past eight years of unprecedented fiscal collapse, and the people may finally be fed up with big government, runaway spending, public-sector corruption, and job-killing regulations. A recent in-depth survey, published by the daily Kathimerini newspaper and the new think tank...
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Modern Slovakia is like night and day compared to its years under communist rule, before the 1989 Velvet Revolution hastened the end of communist control, ultimately dissolving the Soviet Union in 1991. The nation has forged its own path since its Velvet Divorce separated Slovakia from the Czech Republic only two years after tha...
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In the early 1980s, the workers at a General Motors plant in California had become so disillusioned with their jobs that they sometimes sabotaged the quality of the cars on purpose. The plant began to perform so poorly that the company shut it down. That failure, though, is only the first part of a great turnaround story. In a s...
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Asia Liberty Forum brought together more than 225 leaders, advocates, and think tank professionals from 22 countries to explore the work being done to break down the barriers to prosperity in the region.
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In 2002, Lithuania added economic education to its national school curriculum, mandating that 9th or 10th grade students take 31 hours of classroom study. Teachers, many of them working out of their field, struggled to make outdated textbooks relevant to their students, especially as the available material emphasized government-...
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Intelligence agencies and police in the United Kingdom have been secretly using unauthorized techniques to eradicate what they defined as online “safe spaces,” where criminals, terrorists, and paedophiles are believed to hide. In 2015, the U.K. government proposed legislation to make these techniques lawful, and ultimately passe...
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For Christmas, our five-year-old son Sebastian wants a Hot Wheels Ultimate Garage. Our two-year-old daughter Arianna will also play with those cars, although we will continue to try to get her to like dolls. Despite these presents and all the presents in the years to come, however, my wife and I think the best present we ever co...
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In high schools across the world, most students graduate without any exposure to the concepts of market economics. The Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI), based in Vilnius, sought to change that by developing its Economics in 31 Hours textbook, which has been awarded this year’s prestigious $100,000 Templeton Freedom Award....
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WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 10, 2016 — Dr. Tom G. Palmer has been named the George M. Yeager Chair for Advancing Liberty at Atlas Network. Palmer has devoted his life to the promotion of the common-sense principles of liberty in the United States and worldwide. He has created and taught numerous educational programs, authored and edi...
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