The Policy Prof

Social scientists have long noted the excessive consumerism in the United States. Consumerism can be defined as a society’s preoccupation with acquiring consumer goods. According to United Nations data, the United States ranks third behind only Bermuda and Switzerland, with household consumption expenditures per capita of $43,959. As the table below shows, those expenditures far exceed the expenditures for households in almost all other “First World” countries. Source: Households and NPISHs Final consumption expenditure per capita (constant 2015 US$) |…

Following up on our earlier post discussing the need for a small, simple set of policy principles that every new policy must meet, our second proposed principle relates to economic inequality: No policy shall be adopted that increases income inequality or wealth inequality. Measuring economic inequality In discussing economic inequality, one must always be clear about both the type of inequality and the measure of that inequality. Common types of economic inequality include pre-tax income inequality, post-tax income inequality, wealth…

Following up on our post discussing the need for Americans to drive smaller cars, we provide a list of the most popular U.S. passenger vehicles in 2025 ranked from least to most considerate, based on vehicle size and fuel efficiency. We ranked all 94 passenger vehicles with more than 50,000 reported U.S. sales in 2025. Manufacturers report only aggregate sales for all configurations of each vehicle. We tried to consider the most popular configuration for each vehicle, while also trying…

We updated our rankings of the 136 FBS football teams through the end of the 2025-26 season. Unfortunately, the bowl games are not as competitive as they used to be, as many of the best players sit out those games to avoid getting injured before the NFL draft. Nevertheless, we considered the results of all bowl games. They are very helpful for our model to compare teams across conferences, as there are relatively few regular season games between the best…

As compared with movies, there is not nearly as much or as reliable information regarding the best TV shows of all time. There are not nearly as many rankings from individual critics and are no reliable sources that aggregate rankings across many critics. Similarly, there are no reliable sources that aggregate rankings across many individuals. Also, there is no longer a single comparable index like box office receipts for movies to indicate the popularity of TV shows. Historically, the Nielsen…

Following up on our earlier post discussing the need for a small, simple set of policy principles that every new policy must meet, our first proposed principle relates to government debt: Except to address an emergency, no policy shall be adopted that increases the ratio of the national debt held by the public (which we refer to as “public debt”) to GDP. Causes of the current debt In 2001, the federal government had a budget surplus of $127 billion, had…

Since the 1960s, policy professionals have used policy analysis criteria to analyze proposed public policies. Those criteria have evolved over time and there is still not a universally agreed list. Kraft and Furlong provide a fairly typical list of the following eight criteria: effectiveness, efficiency, equity, liberty/freedom, political feasibility, social acceptability, administrative feasibility, and technical feasibility. It has become increasingly apparent that these criteria, while helpful, are not sufficient to protect us from bad policies. In particular, there is no…

Following up on our post on a new approach to ranking college football teams, which we applied to the Big Ten conference, this post expands that approach to all 136 FBS teams, ranking those teams through the conference championship games. We considered only games played between FBS teams. There were 126 FBS vs. FCS games in 2025 and the FCS teams won only four. Certainly, the four FBS teams that lost those games (Army, Eastern Michigan, Massachusetts, and Middle Tennessee…

Dozens of organizations and individuals produce computer-based college football rankings. Kenneth Massey’s page displays rankings for many of these models, in addition to traditional poll-based rankings. The approaches taken in the computer models vary widely in how they address the following issues: (1) margin of victory; (2) strength of schedule; (3) game location; (4) game timing in the season; and (5) adjustments for statistics other than game score, such as points per drive, yards per game, yards per play,  turnovers…

Unlike with movies, where many different credible organizations and individuals publish “best of all-time” lists, there are relatively few credible lists of the best Broadway musicals ever. Of course, part of that difference is due to the difference in form. Movies from any period are available to everyone to watch today. Musicals are generally available only while they are running; cast albums and movie adaptations are not quite the same experience, although the recent trend toward filmed stage versions is…