Elevators show U.S. needs a lift to catch up with EU

The European Union has spent 60 years tearing down commercial and migration barriers between its member countries: and yet the flow of people and goods and services between California and Texas, is still much larger than between Germany and France. Rather than that being a sign of failure, this week’s guests — Matthias Matthijs and Craig Parsons — say the opposite is true. They argue the EU has removed regulatory barriers but failed to tear down cultural ones: leaving the continent with an underused single market. Americans are enthusiastic about working, buying and selling across state lines: but they do it despite pointless barriers — from local standards for elevators to different state hairdresser licensing rules. The payoff from U.S. state and federal governments doing some EU-style market reforms could be huge.