Author Archive | Todd Zywicki

What’s with ESPN these days? First, the Scrabble meltdown, now this–“Browns Quarterback Jeff Garcia says a comment made by ex-teammate Terrell Owens implying that he is gay is ridiculous and untrue.” I just hope it doesn’t disrupt Garcia’s performance for my fantasy football team (I had injury-prone underachieving TO last year).

As noted in Wine Wars, Part 2, nothing in the text of the 21st Amendment specifically repeals the dormant Commerce Clause, nor does it specifically repeal only the dormant Commerce Clause and no other provision of the Constitution. Nonetheless, some conservatives have argued that the dormant Commerce Clause is not “in” the Constitution but is […]

As noted in Wine Wars, Part 1 there is no persuasive policy goal to justify discriminatory bans that permit direct shipment by in-state wineries but prohibit out-of-state wineries. New York, for instance, has 200 farm wineries shipping directly to consumers and has not proffered any evidence that consumers can only get drunk on California wines […]

Douglas Irwin, Professor at my alma mater Dartmouth, has a brilliant dissection of modern-day protectionists in today’s Wall Street Journal. His concluding paragraph is a home run, “As it stands now, free trade-critics bring nothing to the table. They do not have a constructive agenda to remedy the problems they see. Free-trade critics are long […]

I was honored to make the cut for the July Cato Audio program for my speech on the folly of proposed bans on advertising food products to children in order to combat obesity in children. Children’s obesity is a serious and growing problem, but fad policies like advertising bans are going to be no more […]

According to empirical study, the benefits to consumers from direct wine shipment can be substantial, both in terms of variety and price. A study by the FTC http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/07/wine.htm published during my tenure found that found that 15 percent of a sample of popular wines available online were not available from retail wine stores within 10 […]

Over the next several entries, I will lay out my personal views on issues related to the interstate direct shipment of wine. As readers are probably aware, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument this term in two cases involving discriminatory bans to interstate direct shipping. In both the Michigan and New York cases, the […]