Economic History

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,...

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

In 1949, the innovative French economist and policymaker Jean Fourastié introduced a theory of growth and technological development that economists could still...

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

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

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

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

The Communist Origins of China’s Embrace of Markets

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

Latest news

Revising the Merger Guidelines To Return Antitrust to a Sound Economic and Legal Foundation

The draft Merger Guidelines largely replace the consumer welfare standard of the Chicago School with the lessening of competition principle found in the 1914 Clayton Act. This shift would enable the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division to utilize the full extent of modern economics to respond to rising concentration and its harmful effects, writes John Kwoka.

How Anthony Downs’s Analysis Explains Rational Voters’ Preferences for Populism

In new research, Cyril Hédoin and Alexandre Chirat use the rational-choice theory of economist Anthony Downs to explain how populism rationally arises to challenge established institutions of liberal democracy.

The Impact of Large Institutional Investors on Innovation Is Not as Positive as One Might Expect

In a new paper, Bing Guo, Dennis C. Hutschenreiter, David Pérez-Castrillo, and Anna Toldrà-Simats study how large institutional investors impact firm innovation. The authors find that large institutional investors encourage internal research and development but discourage firm acquisitions that would add patents and knowledge to their firms’ portfolios, hampering overall innovation.

The FTC Needs To Focus Arguments on Technological Transitions After High-Profile Losses

Joshua Gray and Cristian Santesteban argue that the Federal Trade Commission's focus in Meta-Within and Microsoft-Activision on narrow markets like VR fitness apps and consoles missed the boat on the real competition issue: the threat to future competition in nascent markets like VR platforms and cloud gaming.

We Need Better Research on the Relationship Between Market Power and Productivity in the Hospital Industry

Antitrust debates have largely ignored questions about the relationship between market power and productivity, and scholars have provided little guidance on the issue due to data limitations. However, data is plentiful on the hospital industry for both market power and operating costs and productivity, and researchers need to take advantage, writes David Ennis.

Debating the Draft Merger Guidelines: Transcript

On September 7, the Stigler Center hosted a webinar to discuss the draft merger guidelines. What follows is a slightly edited transcript of the event.

Holding Up the News

Meta has silenced news organizations’ social media accounts in response to Canada’s Online News Act, a law not yet in effect. Josh Braun describes the reasoning behind such legislation, its potential flaws, and how Meta, particularly Facebook, has turned the Canadian wildfire crisis into a regulatory pressure campaign.