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Oliver Hart

Oliver Hart is currently the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1993. He is the 2016 co-recipient of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the American Finance Association, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association, and has several honorary degrees.
Commentary

How the Start-Up Nation Could Fail

Lucian Bebchuk and Oliver Hart explain why Israel’s proposed legal transformation would undermine not only its democracy but also its economy.
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ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm

Shareholder Democracy Doesn’t Work. Here’s How It Can.

An opinion piece by Oliver Hart and Luigi Zingales describes how a new voting mechanism could help individual investors persuade companies to...
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News

Shareholders Don’t Always Want to Maximize Shareholder Value

Oliver Hart, winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for economics, reflects on how the world has changed since Milton Friedman published his famous essay...
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Serving Shareholders Doesn’t Mean Putting Profit Above All Else

The time has come for companies, economists, and society to abandon the argument that the only responsibility of business is to maximize profits. Editor’s note:...
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ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm

A Small Step for Theory, a Leap Forward in Corporate Governance

Moving from shareholder value maximization to shareholder welfare maximization may be a small step in theory, but it could trigger a leap forward in...
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Latest news

Antitrust and Competition

The Kroger-Albertsons Merger Threatens Smaller Upstream Suppliers

Richard Volpe
Much of the conversation of the proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger has focused on the risks to consumers. However, the merger also poses serious implications for the grocers’ upstream suppliers, particularly smaller regional firms.
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Regulation

Why Have Uninsured Depositors Become De Facto Insured?

Michael Ohlrogge
Due to a change in how the FDIC resolves failed banks, uninsured deposits have become de facto insured. Not only is this dangerous for risk in the banking system, it is not what Congress intends the FDIC to do, writes Michael Ohlrogge.
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Antitrust and Competition

Merger Law Reaches Acquirer Incentives and Private Equity Strategies

Steven Salop
Steven C. Salop argues that Section 7 of the Clayton Act prohibits mergers in which the acquiring firm’s unilateral incentives and business strategy are likely to lessen market competition.
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Antitrust and Competition

Tim Wu Responds to Letter by Former Agency Chief Economists

Tim Wu
Former special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy Tim Wu responds to the November 27 letter signed by former chief economists at the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department Antitrust Division calling for a separation of the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines.
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Book Reviews

Can the Public Moderate Social Media?

Surya Gowda
ProMarket student editor Surya Gowda reviews the arguments made by Paul Gowder in his new book, The Networked Leviathan: For Democratic Platforms.
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Income Inequality

Uninhibited Campaign Donations Risks Creating Oligarchy

Valentino Larcinese, Alberto Parmigiani
In new research, Valentino Larcinese and Alberto Parmigiani find that the 1986 Reagan tax cuts led to greater campaign spending from wealthy individuals, who benefited the most from this policy. The authors argue that a very permissive system of political finance, combined with the erosion of tax progressivity, created the conditions for the mutual reinforcement of economic and political disparities. The result was an inequality spiral hardly compatible with democratic ideals.
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ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm

Did the Meme Stock Revolution Actually Change Anything?

Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, Alex Lee
Many financial commentators thought that the surge of retail investors participating in the stock market, the most notable of whom boosted “meme stocks” like GameStop, would democratize corporate governance and improve prosocial firm behavior, including the promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. In new research, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, and Yoon-Ho Alex Lee find evidence that the exact opposite took place.
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ProMarket is dedicated to discussing how competition tends to be subverted by special interests. The posts represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty. For more information, please visit ProMarket Policy.

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