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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

How a Wave of Corporate Takeovers Ushered In the Gospel of Shareholder Value

Jonathan Levy
In an excerpt from his new book, Ages of American Capitalism, economic historian Jonathan Levy explains how "financiers blew up the postwar...
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Academic Capture

Iowa’s “Butter-Margarine War”: T. W. Schultz’s Fight for Academic Freedom

David Seim
During the Second World War, economists at Iowa State College published a pamphlet titled “Putting Dairying on a War Footing,” which would...
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Antitrust and Competition

James M. Buchanan Trusted Market Mechanisms Because He Trusted Individuals

Alain Marciano
James Buchanan, one of the most influential economists of the twentieth century, believed that individuals were able to voluntarily devise private and...
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Corporate Governance

What Stakeholder Capitalism Can Learn From Jensen and Meckling

Alex Edmans
Jensen and Meckling’s 1976 article is an academic classic, but heavily criticized by stakeholder capitalists for arguing that corporate structures should be...
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Commentary

An Unusual History: A Conversation Between Two Economists About the Economics Department at the University of Chicago

Sebastian Edwards, Arnold C. Harberger
In conversation with Sebastian Edwards, Arnold C. Harberger reflects on his time at the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago.
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Antitrust and Competition

Why We Need To Re-think Friedman’s Ideas About Monopolies

David Chan Smith
Friedman’s New York Times Magazine article on the social purpose of business was a specific intervention in the debate over shareholder activism...
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Economic History Series

Are Intellectual Property Rights Neoliberal? Yes and No

Quinn Slobodian
Today’s global IP regime is often described by critical scholars bluntly as “neoliberal.” But in fact, the topic of intellectual property rights...
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Corporate Governance

A Famed Economist’s Public Company U-Turn

Brian Cheffins
Michael Jensen, a leading late 20th century economist, pivoted from praising public companies in the 1970s to assailing public company governance in...
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Corporate Governance

The Most Famous Article on the Theory of the Firm is Widely Misunderstood

Brian Cheffins
Michael Jensen and William Meckling’s famous 1976 Journal of Financial Economics article has been cited nearly 100,000 times and is often regarded...
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Antitrust and Competition

“Power Is Evil in Itself”: The Ordoliberal Quest for a Privilege-Free Order

Stefan Kolev
The lesson from the quest of German ordoliberals for a privilege-free order from the 1930s to the 1950s is that once in...
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Antitrust and Competition

New Study Warns Antitrust Inaction May Lead To Acceptable Collusion for Public Policy Considerations

Or Brook
The modernization of EU antitrust laws muddied the water with regard to the ways that antitrust authorities and courts should handle situations...
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Antitrust and Competition

Dark Money Dominates Spending by Special Interest Groups and Sways Elections

Matthew Denes, Madeline Marco Scanlon, Florian Schulz
New research on undisclosed and unlimited political contributions, or dark money, exposes the increasing role that such funds play in U.S. elections.
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Antitrust and Competition

The “Conspiracy” of Consumer Welfare Theory

Darren Bush, Mark Glick
Matt Stoller argues there was a conspiracy. It was more of an association with a singular purpose.
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Antitrust and Competition

Researchers Find Reduced Competition After Pandemic

Brooke Fox
The chart of the week comes from a new research paper that documents the increase in small business closures during the Covid...
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News

Voters Still Believe Politics is About the Common Good, Not Just Rent-Seeking

Chad Kendall, John G. Matsusaka
Do voters still believe that politics can be a source for common-good policies and not just partisan bickering and rent-seeking? With political...
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Antitrust and Competition

How to Design Data Protection Laws That Actually Work 

Filippo Lancieri
More and more countries are passing data protection laws, yet empirical studies show that these laws rarely deliver on their promises. A...
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Antitrust and Competition

Are Monopolists or Cartels the True Source of Anticompetitive US Political Power?

Herbert Hovenkamp
Trade associations are often the biggest obstacles to competitive markets, especially when those organizations use their influence to change public policy in...
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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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