Commentary

GameStop, the Cantillon Effect, and America’s Corrupt Financial Plumbing

The GameStop frenzy, far from a morality tale of the people showing up Wall Street elites, should show that something is seriously...

Big Tech’s Fight Over Privacy: Could Facebook Win an Antitrust Lawsuit Against Apple?

Do the new iOS 14 privacy features violate antitrust laws? If Facebook brings an antitrust suit against Apple, as it is reportedly...

How Wall Street Is Devastating Our National Security

Even the Pentagon now realizes that Wall Street’s insatiable appetite for easy profits and love of monopoly has become a clear and...

Digital Platforms May Be Monopolistic Providers, But They Are Not Infrastructure

Social media platforms are not infrastructure nor natural monopolies, and they should be regulated only if they have monopolistic power and abuse...

The Case for Optimism About America

The good news is that America is still the engine of global wealth creation: nothing fosters political pragmatism like prosperity. But there...

What Saved American Democracy from Donald Trump?

Despite President Donald Trump's attempts to undermine it, the American democracy seems to have survived. We now need to analyze more closely...

The Silent Coup

President Donald Trump's seditious actions are exposing the political power that Twitter, Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook enjoy. Banning him from their...

We Must Stop Applying Economic Standards to Political Leadership

Joseph Schumpeter, ironically remembered for glorifying the entrepreneur’s penchant for creative destruction and innovation, actually warned against exalting entrepreneurs as the redeemers of...

Income-Driven Repayment Provides a Way to Offer Student Loan Forgiveness to Those Who Need It the Most

Direct loan cancellation is not the only policy option to lower student debt. If policymakers want more targeted loan forgiveness, aimed at lower income...

Little Law and No New Regulator: What’s Missing in the House Antitrust Report

The House Antitrust report spans 449 pages, 30 of which contain recommendations for antitrust reform. However, one of the most telling aspects...

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AI For the Antitrust Regulator

Cary Coglianese lays out the potential, and the considerations, for antitrust regulators to use machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms.

Creation over Time in Copyright and Patent

On May 18, the United States Supreme Court decided two intellectual property cases with two seemingly different results. A closer look, however, reveals a complimentary concern with the monopolistic power of first movers and how the legal system should enable innovation from second movers over time, writes Randy Picker.

ESG Standards’ Good, Bad and Ugly

The Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State hosted a virtual event discussing the standards, metrics and disclosures of investments focused on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals. The following is a transcript of the event.

Reregulate.

Lee Hepner and William J. McGee respond to Clifford Winston’s ProMarket piece asserting that further deregulation of the airline industry would resolve problems in the industry. Instead, the authors claim a return to regulation would produce better results for travelers.

A World With Far Fewer Mergers

Brooke Fox and Walter Frick analyze research and ideas presented at the Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference that question the value of mergers.

The Banking Risks of Central Bank Digital Currencies

The implementation of central bank digital currencies as the primary medium of exchange would exacerbate the flaws of our current fiat system which encourage banks to overextend credit and create liabilities that they cannot redeem. This will worsen the already recurring cycles of financial crises, writes Vibhu Vikramaditya.

The Whig History of the Merger Guidelines

A pervasive "Whig" view of United States antitrust history among scholars and practitioners celebrates the Merger Guidelines' implementation of increasingly sophisticated economic methods since their...