Commentary

Bethany McLean’s Weekend Reading List: Free Money, Hospitals, and Private Equity Firms

Corruption, lobbying, corporate malfeasance, and frauds: a weekly unconventional selection of must-read articles by investigative journalist Bethany McLean. 

How Airline Alliances Convinced Regulators That Collusion Reduces Prices

The Department of Transportation granted antitrust immunity to Atlantic alliances that reduced competition on the basis of a single paper written by...

Bethany McLean’s Weekend Reading List: Contact Tracing, Debt, and the Oil Crash

Corruption, lobbying, corporate malfeasance, and frauds: a weekly unconventional selection of must-read articles by investigative journalist Bethany McLean. 

How the Tension Between Big Business and Antitrust Will Reshape Post-Covid America

Big Business is going to be structuring the response to the pandemic, at least temporarily. A new generation of leaders and thinkers...

Congress Can Move Now to Stop Amazon’s Cloning Factory. Here’s How

If there was any doubt that online marketplaces should be considered a separate market before the coronavirus wiped out brick-and-mortar retail,...

Why We Can Be Optimistic About the Long-Term Impact of the “Covid Economy”

In the short run, we have to save lives and hibernate the economy. In the longer term we will have slower, but important changes....

How to Interpret Financial Market Movements to Predict the Impact of Coronavirus on GDP

Equity markets in the EU and US dropped by as much as 30 percent, which means that investors have revised downward their estimate of...

Bethany McLean’s Weekend Reading List: the Pandemic’s Long-Term Consequences

Corruption, lobbying, corporate malfeasance, and frauds: a weekly unconventional selection of must-read articles by investigative journalist Bethany McLean.      Of course, this weekend's list is mostly...

The ECB Can Save the Italian Economy and Prevent a New Euro Crisis Triggered by Covid-19 Fallout

The Italian government's effort to contain the coronavirus will have significant economic consequences. Italy should be allowed to ask for emergency help with one...

Governments and Central Banks Have a Few Unpleasant Options to Stop the Economic Contagion

The global economy and financial markets are seriously hit by the coronavirus outbreak. Central banks can do something, but monetary policy is not enough.  A fiscal stimulus might mitigate the impact, but the record-level outstanding amount of public and private debt adds additional risk to the current perfect storm.  

Latest news

Why Have Uninsured Depositors Become De Facto Insured?

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.

Merger Law Reaches Acquirer Incentives and Private Equity Strategies

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.

Tim Wu Responds to Letter by Former Agency Chief Economists

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.

Can the Public Moderate Social Media?

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

Uninhibited Campaign Donations Risks Creating Oligarchy

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.

Did the Meme Stock Revolution Actually Change Anything?

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.

The Kroger-Albertsons Merger Will Not Help Grocery Competition

Kroger and Albertsons say they need to merge to compete with Walmart. Claire Kelloway argues that what they really want is Walmart’s monopsony power, and permitting mergers on these grounds will only harm suppliers, workers, and consumers.