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Economic History Series

The current debate in economics seems to lack a historical perspective. To try to address this deficiency, we decided to launch a Sunday column on ProMarket focusing on the historical dimension of economic ideas.

Economic History Series

Corporate Sovereigns and the Emergence of State Sovereignty: A Closer Look at the East India Company

Swati Srivastava
A new data collection has made it possible to reveal the self-sovereignty of the English East India Trading Company that produced a...
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Antitrust and Competition

A Posner-Stigler Smoking Gun?

Herbert Hovenkamp
A memo from George Stigler and Richard Posner to the Reagan administration was recently unearthed. To understand the meaning behind the memo,...
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Economic History Series

Why Jean Fourastié’s Theory of Economic Development is Still Relevant Today

David Le Bris, Elie Gray
In 1949, the innovative French economist and policymaker Jean Fourastié introduced a theory of growth and technological development that economists could still...
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Antitrust and Competition

The Rise, Survival, and Potential Fall of the Reagan-Era Antitrust Consensus

Brian Cheffins
With major antitrust reform in the air, Brian Cheffins explores how and why a now highly controversial antitrust consensus that emerged under...
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Economic History Series

How China Became a Global Economic Powerhouse Through an Idiosyncratic Approach to Market Capitalism

Isabella M. Weber
Chinese reformers after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 agreed that it was necessary for China to move towards marketization, but...
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Economic History Series

The Communist Origins of China’s Embrace of Markets

Jason M. Kelly
In an excerpt from his book Market Maoists: The Communist Origins of China’s Capitalist Ascent, Jason M. Kelly explores the commercial relationships...
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Antitrust and Competition

How the Free Software and the IP Wars of the 1990s and 2000s Presaged Today’s Toxic, Concentrated Internet

Elettra Bietti
How did the internet evolve from a relatively decentralized, hybrid, and democratizing space toward a concentrated, privatized environment controlled by a handful...
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Economic History Series

When Milton Friedman Sided With Keynes Over Hayek on Inflation

Nicholas Wapshott
In an excerpt from his book Samuelson Friedman: The Battle Over the Free Market, Nicholas Wapshott explores the disagreements between Friedman and...
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Economic History Series

How Manufacturing’s Lobby Won and Lost its Political Influence

Jennifer Delton
What happens when supporting capitalism hurts capitalists? Do business lobbies ever control the economy to the extent we think they do? The...
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Antitrust and Competition

The Dawn of Antitrust and the Egalitarian Roots of the Sherman Act

Sanjukta Paul
While it isn’t particularly controversial that concentrated economic power was a legislative target of the Sherman Act, when read as a corollary...
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Antitrust and Competition

Antitrust and Rule by Judges

Paul Tucker
The early-1980s Posner-Stigler memorandum to incoming president Reagan’s transition team is interesting for a host of reasons, but most of all in...
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Antitrust and Competition

Should the European Union Require Tech Firms to Adopt a Common Charger?

Federico Innocenti, Martin Peitz
According to a new European Commission directive expected to be approved in the next few months, tech firms will have to use...
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News

Chart of the Week: Economists Don’t Think Congress Should Make Price Gouging Illegal

Brooke Fox
Most economists disagree with a new bill in the US that would set limits on "unconscionably excessive prices," according to a recent...
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Antitrust and Competition

Neoliberal Economists Are Giving Biden Bad Advice on Inflation

Hal Singer
To spare the economy from the pain of further interest rate hikes, the President should aggressively pursue anticompetitive conduct by companies in...
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Antitrust and Competition

How Would the Big Tech Self-Preferencing Bill Affect Users? 

Randy Picker
The Senate looks to be nearing a vote on the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which would prohibit gatekeeping digital platforms...
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News

New eBook Revisits George Stigler’s Theory of Regulatory Capture 50 Years Later

Filippo Lancieri, Luigi Zingales
To mark the 50-year anniversary of George Stigler’s seminal piece, “The Theory of Economic Regulation” we are publishing a new eBook examining...
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News

Firms Gerrymander Ownership of Polluting Plants to Reap Public and Regulatory Benefits

Janet Gao, Ran Duchin, Qiping Xu
New research has discovered that many companies who appear to sell, or ‘divest,’ their toxic plants, actually retain relationships with their buyers....
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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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