Economic historians remain divided over America’s experiment with free banking during the antebellum era. Some argue that the reforms, which liberalized the bank-chartering process, simply exchanged one set of entry barriers for another, while others hold that free banking improved competition...

The EU agenda for improving competitiveness is missing in action. Economic competitiveness has been a central plank in the development of the European Union - a relentless quest for policies that lead to more prosperity and that make European companies in world markets more successful. However,...