LATEST ENTRY

LINKS | Noah Brier

States as Incubators

June 14, 2009 | RSS | EMAIL | PRINT | 2 COMMENTS

In response to a post from Matthew Cooper over at The Atlantic about the possibility of the FDA overseeing the tobacco industry, Crooked Timber examines the economics of the world's smoking bans.

While all of that is quite interesting, it was the following quote from The Atlantic that I found fascinating. In response to the incredible popularity of smoking bans after New York City instituted theirs in 2004, Cooper writes, "Consider it part of the beauty of federalism. The small ideas that incubate in laboratories of democracy, as the former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously called the states, have grown wildly." While this may be a well known idea, I had never really thought of states as the incubators for new ideas that may move up to a national level. Very interesting.

via Crooked Timber // Tags: economics, politics, smoking


PREVIOUS ENTRY | NEXT ENTRY

LEAVE A COMMENT

First name, first and last, whatever you feel like.

Required, but not displayed (so don't worry about spam).

If you've got one, flaunt it.

You can use some HTML (a's, br's, p's, oh my!) if you'd like, if you don't know what that means, don't worry about it.
REMEMBER ME?

COMMENTS

1@robotsoul

there is a long tradition of this especially for civil rights cases. It was the state by state strategy that led to breakthroughs like desegregation, and is now being used by advocates for universal marriage rights. The tactic works because it appeals to both parties, republicans advocate for small government and can't really argue with state legislation, incubation gives big government democrats the evidence they need to push for federal legislation. It is a prime example of our system of government working effectively. For more on the legislation and the effect of the NY ban i suggest this video: http://www.newsy.com/videos/new_sheriff_in_town

June 15, 2009

2Tim Walker

In a parallel vein: big cities look to each other as guinea pigs. E.g., as I understand it, smarter traffic metering / tolling in London and Stockholm have been used as models for other big cities as they try to abate traffic. And the city-owned utility in Austin has been held up as a model for other municipal utilities as they try to boost their mix of wind & solar power.

June 15, 2009