You may not have seen them on the highway yet, but autonomous vehicles are here. The potential benefits of this and related technologies are immense. But they also present new and unique regulatory and infrastructure challenges for state and local governments. Brent Skorup of the Mercatus Center has written extensively on these issues and will lay out the principles and practices policymakers should pursue when determining how to regulate these new technologies.

There aren’t many policies that get near unanimous support from economists, but free trade is one of them. Despite this, a central theme of the 2016 presidential campaign, heard from both political parties, was that free trade was somehow harmful to the United States and corrective action was needed. Mark Perry, an economics professor at the University of Michigan-Flint and scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, will make the case for why President Trump’s assessment of free trade is misguided.

Obamacare repeal-and-replace is underway, and regardless of whether it passes or fails big, changes are coming for Michigan’s medical services and insurance industry, and the state’s social welfare system, especially Medicaid.

Please join us at Northwood University as Jay Nordlinger, senior editor at National Review, presents his book "Children of Monsters: An Inquiry into the Sons and Daughters of Dictators."

As police departments seek to reduce crime, restore trust in law enforcement and improve the strained relationship between officers and civilians, many have begun shifting to more community-oriented operations.

A “bottlenecker” is someone who uses the power of the government to limit competition in the market and artificially boost their own profits. Bottleneckers use a variety of methods to achieve their goals, including tax loopholes, regulations, occupational licensing requirements, minimum wage laws and many more. The end result when these special interest bottleneckers succeed is fewer choices and higher prices for consumers, fewer job opportunities for workers and less innovation throughout the economy.

Please join us as we welcome Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, as guest speaker at the Mackinac Center Legacy Society Annual Luncheon this year. Mr. Bandow will share the moral arguments for free-market principles in his talk, Morality of Capitalism.

Unionized workers are forced to accept union representation whether they want it or not, even though Michigan is a right-to-work state.  Right-to-work takes away a union’s ability to get a worker fired for not paying them. However with the law unions are still given a monopoly to represent all workers on a job. They must provide representation even to those not paying them. While unions like their monopoly they still complain about what they call “free riders” – those forced to accept their services but not paying for them.  Unions have brought legal challenges in several states claiming right-to-work violates constitutional takings clauses because of this so-called free rider issue.

Retiree benefits are a national crisis, but some cities and states have made significant reforms that are saving money and preventing liabilities being pushed off onto future generations. This event will discuss the scope of the problem and what Michigan should be doing to solve it.