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Featured Programs and Projects

Vision for Liberty Award
Fresh insights, breakthrough ideas, new paths for liberty. Win up to $50,000 for writing the best case for a freer society.

Innovation Project
Talent and hard work are essential to advancing liberty. Design and propose your own full-time role at the Cato Institute.

Cato University
Cato’s premier educational series where college and graduate students explore the classical liberal ideas behind today’s biggest policy debates.

Cato Courses
Self-paced, interactive courses on globalization, free markets, criminal justice, immigration, and more. No tuition required.

Featured Publications

Spring/​Summer 2026 Free Society
This issue contains a special feature on America’s 250th anniversary, an interview with Argentine Deregulation Czar Federico Sturzenegger, two pieces that add much-needed clarity to the affordability debate, a profile of Cato staffers’ libertarian origins, and much more.

2025 Annual Report
Some stories here put us at odds with those in power, others with their critics. Our 2025 Annual Report shows what this independence makes possible—from defeating tariffs and securing tax reform to reaching 25,000+ teachers—and what’s next for strengthening your freedoms.

The Cato Institute Handbook on Affordability
The Cato Institute Handbook on Affordability explains what caused today’s cost-of-living squeeze and how long-standing government policies in housing, energy, health care, transportation, childcare, food, and college costs make things worse.

Upcoming Events
Grim Old Days_16x9
Book Forum

The Grim Old Days:

An Introduction to the Preindustrial Past
Date and Time
-
Location
Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC

Join us for a book forum offering a tour of a thankfully lost world of bloodletting, filth, destitution, and famine-induced cannibalism, dispelling the idea that the Industrial Revolution failed to improve living standards for ordinary people.