Economic History

How the AT&T Case Can Inform Big Tech Breakups

Breaking up companies that antitrust regulators consider too dominant can be costly and might negatively impact innovation and consumer welfare. As economists...

Industrial Policy From Engels to Eisenhower

Industrial policy was once so out of fashion that it was jokingly called “the policy that shall not be named.” Now it’s...

To Build an Equitable Economy, We Must Understand Capitalism’s Racist Heritage

American capitalism was built on racial exploitation, from the enslavement of Black people to institutionalized discrimination and its structural impact on our...

Resisting Regulatory Capture in the 1857 Financial Crisis

The historical origins of financial crises teaches us about changing attitudes toward government intervention into private markets.

How Austerity Emerged after World War I to Preserve Capitalism

In this excerpt of a new book, The Capital Order, Clara Mattei traces the origins of austerity to the period just after...

Neoliberalism Beyond the Heartlands

Much of the historical analysis of neoliberalism, both its ideological roots and its outcomes, has focused on U.S. and Europe, with figures...

Adam Smith on Self-Betterment and Policy Impacts

In this celebration of Adam Smith’s contributions to the field of political economy, Peter J. Boettke and Alain Marciano take a passage...

New Research Shows The Breakup of IG Farben Increased Innovation

IG Farben used to be the world’s largest chemical company and a major innovator—until it was broken up in one of the...

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

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

A Posner-Stigler Smoking Gun?

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

Latest news

Mobile Internet Is Changing Employment in Developing Countries, but Not Always as Expected

Scholars and policymakers have put much faith into the prospect of internet connectivity catalyzing development in low- and middle-income countries. In new...

Biden’s Second-Best Economic Agenda

Efficiency is out and political economy is in. But what does that imply about making good policy?

The Fed and Bank Failures

Viral Acharya and Raghuram Rajan explain how quantitative easing contributed to the problems underlying the recent bank failures such as that of...

Self-Preferencing Theories Need To Account for Exploitative Abuse

Patrice Bougette, Oliver Budzinski, and Frédéric Marty argue in their research that antitrust authorities on both sides of the Atlantic must take...

Startup Acquisitions Have Undecided Effects on Innovation and Economic Growth

Startups are a major driver of innovation, but many startups are acquired by large incumbents. Do these acquisitions stifle innovation or promote...

History Shows that Voluntary ESG Standards Lead to a More Focused ESG Disclosure

In recent years, ESG reports have become more common for publicly traded companies. However, critics have found the information they provide to...

Letters that Matter: How Interest Groups Shape Financial Legislation

Members of Congress are inundated with an avalanche of correspondence on a daily basis. But what persuades them to heed the call?...