The Mackinac Center for Public Policy and partner organizations cordially invite you to join us in celebrating National School Choice Week with an event from 11 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Jan. 27, 2015, at the Capitol.

Please join the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in welcoming Daniel DiSalvo, assistant professor of Political Science at The City College of New York-CUNY and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute's Center for State and Local Leadership.

Occupational licensing has had a curious and unusual history both in the U.S. and other nations. During some periods it was virtually nonexistent, but now in the U.S., it is growing rapidly and has developed into a stealth form of regulation. Dr. Morris Kleiner, a nationally recognized expert on occupational licensure, will address this issue and provide answers to why some occupations became heavily regulated and others did not. In addition, he’ll outline the economic effects of occupational licensing on mobility, wage determination, prices and the quality of services delivered.

Please join us for a luncheon hosted by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Acton Institute.

Please join us for a luncheon celebrating the Mackinac Center's Legacy Society and featuring keynote speaker Kevin D. Williamson.

A necessary building block of a prosperous society is economic freedom. History shows that freer countries tend to become wealthier countries, with the United States typically leading the way. But is the United States moving in a different direction?

Dean Stansel, an economics professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, will discuss the current state of economic liberty in the United States. Stansel authors the Fraser Institute’s annual “Economic Freedom of North America” report, and will compare states by this measure. Finally, Stansel will assess how well Michigan supports economic freedom.

Featuring Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette

James Sherk, senior policy analyst in labor economics at The Heritage Foundation, will present on ways to mitigate the economic harms caused by a higher minimum wage and on ways to hold government unions more accountable to their members.

Our speakers will be Richard Dreyfuss, a senior fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation in Pennsylvania and Stephen D. Eide, senior fellow with the Center for State and Local Leadership at the Manhattan Institute in New York.

How states like Michigan can fix perennial pension problems will be the topic of this Issues and Ideas Forum. The featured speaker will be Dan Liljenquist, who spearheaded pension reforms in Utah while he served as a state senator. For his role in the Utah reforms, Liljenquist was named a 2011 “Public Official of the Year” by Governing Magazine, and has since a become national expert on this issue and highlighted by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, among others outlets.