Sarah Steelman’s about-face on ethanol makes this a good time to look at the costs and benefits of the E-10 mandate that Missouuri enacted in 2006. As it happens, both the Missouri Corn Merchandising Council and the Show-Me Institute have studied the…

The Milken Institute has just updated its State Technology and Science Index, and neither Missouri or Illinois has seen much movement since the last ranking four years ago. Missouri ranks 30th among the states, up from 31st in 2004. Illinois’ ranking…

You may have heard that Missouri now has the cheapest gasoline in the nation, but do you know why? Slate’s Jacob Leibenluft explains our advantage as a combination of “taxes, pipelines and ethanol.”

Our state taxes, at 17.6 cents a…

An English company, Nighthawk Energy, has begun an aggressive drilling program in western Missouri after it found “promising” amounts of oil in four test wells. In a regulatory announcement, Nighthawk says that it and a partner control 7,000 acres in…

Judicial selection has been a hot political issue in Missouri, with some conservative forces recently losing an attempt to modify the state’s nonpartisan court plan. Now the Show-Me Institute says we should think of it as an economic issue, too.

The…

One senses a hint of disappointment in the RCGA’s Monday Memo this morning, even though the Missouri Legislature passed an economic development bill that was the St. Louis business group’s main legislative priority. The bill adds $30 million in authorization for…

Opponents of the Missouri Legislature’s “megaproject” tax credit bill have taken their fight to YouTube. A video titled “Bombardier, eh?” uses Popeye the Sailor Man and the always-hungry Wimpy to lampoon the Canadian company that is talking…

There are a lot of taxes that the Show-Me Institute doesn’t like, but two of its authors have zeroed in on an obscure one that they find especially egregious: the pool-table tax that imposed by some Missouri counties.

Nicholas Loyal and…

Joseph Haslag, a professor of economics at the University of Missouri in Columbia, doesn’t like a “mega-project” economic development bill that’s before the Missouri Senate. The bill would grant payroll tax credits to companies that invest at least $300 million and…

Missouri has finally found the money for a new I-70 bridge, but a recent Show-Me Institute study says it will need the private sector’s help in meeting future transportation needs.

With 32,464 miles of state roads and a relatively low gas…