Centers and Projects
The Cato Institute's nationally and internationally recognized Centers and Projects tackle a wide range of topics, including health care, education, environment and energy, foreign policy, and international human rights. Scholars in these Centers and Projects vigorously apply America's founding principles to key issues of the day, and are committed to countering the continued expansion of government beyond its constitutional constraints, and to confronting escalating attacks on individual rights.
Center for Constitutional Studies
Cato's Center for Constitutional Studies and its scholars take their inspiration from the struggle of America's founding generation to secure liberty through limited government and the rule of law. The Center's scholars address a wide range of constitutional and legal issues and encourage the judiciary to neither make nor ignore the law but interpret and apply it through the natural rights tradition inherited from the founding generation.
Scholars in the Center for Constitutional Studies conduct rigorous legal research on
property rights,
constitutional studies,
environmental law, and the
Supreme Court, amongst
other topics. The Center also yearly produces the
Cato Supreme Court Review, in which leading legal scholars analyze the most important cases of the Supreme Court's most recent term. As part of Cato's, Center scholars file "amicus curiae" (friend of the court)
briefs with the Supreme Court. These briefs encourage the Court to interpret and apply the law through the natural rights tradition inherited from the founding generation — and educate the scholars, advocates, and interested others about Cato's legal positions.
Affiliated Scholars:
- Roger Pilon, Vice President for Legal Affairs; B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies; Director, Center for Constitutional Studies
- Robert A. Levy, Chairman
- Walter Olson, Senior Fellow
- Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies and Editor-in-Chief, Cato Supreme Court Review
Center for Educational Freedom
Cato's Center for Educational Freedom was founded on the principle that parents are best suited to make important decisions regarding the care and education of their children. The Center's scholars seek to shift the
terms of public debate in favor of the fundamental right of parents and toward a future when
state-run schools give way to a dynamic, independent system of schools
competing to meet the needs of American children.
Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity
The Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity was established to promote a better understanding around the world of the benefits of market-liberal policy solutions to combat some of the most pressing problems faced by developing nations. In particular, the Center seeks to advance policies that protect human rights, extend the range of personal choice, and support the central role of
economic freedom in ending world
poverty. Scholars in the Center address a range of economic development issues including
economic growth,
international financial crises, the informal economy, policy reform,
the effectiveness of official aid agencies, public pension privatization, the transition from socialism to the market, and
globalization.
Every year, the Center works with the Fraser Institute in Canada and more than 70 think tanks around the world to produce the
Economic Freedom of the World report, which seeks to measure the consistency of the institutions and policies of various countries with voluntary exchange and the other dimensions of economic freedom.
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Advisory Board:
- Anne Applebaum, columnist, Washington Post
- Gurcharan Das, former CEO, Procter & Gamble, India
- Arnold Harberger, professor of economics, University of California at Los Angeles
- Fred Hu, chief economist, Goldman Sachs, Asia
- Pedro-Pablo Kuczynski, former prime minister, Peru
- Deepak Lal, professor of international development studies, University of California at Los Angeles
- José Piñera, former minister of labor and social security, Chile
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Center for Representative Government
Taking its inspiration from James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, the Cato Institute's Center for Representative Government is dedicated to promoting limited, representative government. Today, government offers many new threats to individual freedom and the virtues needed for its preservation. Unfortunately, career politicians, an ever-expanding government and
massive regulatory constraints dominate American political life. The Center and its scholars are working through books, conferences, forums, op-eds, speeches, congressional testimony, and TV and radio appearances to bring the ideals of individual liberty, civil society,
limited government and citizen legislators back to the forefront of American political life.
Affiliated Scholars:
- John Samples, Director, Center for Representative Government
- Patrick Basham, Adjunct Scholar, Center for Representative Government
Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies
By any reasonable measure, Americans are better off now than during comparable periods in the past, and
expanding engagement in the global economy has played an important role in the ongoing, upward trend in American employment and living standards. To promote further progress for American workers and households, Congress and the administration should pursue policies that expand the freedom of Americans to participate in global markets.
Center for Trade Policy Studies scholars study a range of trade policy issues, including
agriculture,
manufacturing,
immigration, and
trade agreements. Center scholars also maintain
an interactive web site that allows users to examine how Congress and its individual members have voted over the years on bills and amendments affecting the freedom of Americans to trade and invest in the global economy.
Downsizing the Federal Government
The federal government is running massive budget deficits, spending too much, and heading toward a financial crisis. Without a change of direction in Washington, average working families will be faced with huge tax increases and a lower standard of living.
Downsizing the Federal Government, a project of the Cato Institute, helps policymakers and the public understand
where federal funds are being spent and
how to reform each government department. Project scholars describe the failings of federal agencies and identifies specific programs to cut. They also discuss the systematic reasons why government programs are often obsolete, mismanaged, or otherwise dysfunctional.
Project on Criminal Justice
Cato's criminal justice scholars address a wide range of constitutional and legal issues —
civil liberties,
property rights,
civil rights,
criminal law and procedure,
police tactics and misconduct, and the
nanny state, to name just a few. Cato expects the judiciary to be the "bulwark" of our liberties, as James Madison put it, neither making up nor ignoring the law but interpreting and applying it through the natural rights tradition we inherited from the founding generation.
Project on Social Security Choice
Social Security is not sustainable without reform. Simply put, it cannot pay promised future benefits with current levels of taxation. Yet raising taxes or cutting benefits will only make a bad deal worse. However, allowing younger workers to privately invest their Social Security taxes through individual accounts will improve Social Security's rate of return; provide better retirement benefits; treat women, minorities, and low-income workers more fairly; and give workers real ownership and control of their retirement funds.