Economic History

Buchanan’s Samaritan’s Dilemma

The Samaritan’s dilemma is not only about the detrimental effects help can have on the beneficiaries. As James Buchanan explained in his 1975 essay,...

Looks Can Be Deceiving: Ronald Coase and the Chicago School

Ronald Coase is typically thought of as one of the Chicago School’s brightest lights. But Coase’s relationship with Chicago was always an uneasy one,...

The Complicated Legacy of the “Chicago Boys” in Chile

How did a group of Chicago-trained economists manage to turn Chile into the cradle of neoliberalism? As the country aims to move away from...

Mechanics and Financiers: How Political Economy and Political Ideology Helped Make Detroit the Global Leader of the Automotive Industry

The history of automotive mass production begins with a puzzle: Why did Detroit, of all places, pioneer the industry that would shape the twentieth...

“Old Chicago” and Freiburg: Why Ordoliberalism Was No “German Oddity”

Both the Chicago and Freiburg schools faced systemic fragility as the crucial property of societal orders. It was this fragility that served as the...

A New Antitrust Under Biden? Lessons From the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt

The early history of the Sherman Antitrust Act offers relevant insights to contemporary debates on how to best enforce antitrust laws. In fact, the...

How and Why Baseball’s Legal Monopoly Came to Be

Baseball’s antitrust exemption, currently the subject of fierce political backlash, has long been a historical curiosity. Why has a professional sports league enjoyed a...

American History Provides a Valuable Lesson on How Monopolists Use Exclusive Deals to Fortify Their Market Power

Since the Civil War, dominant firms have widely and repeatedly used exclusive agreements to exert, expand, and fortify their market power. History shows that...

Freiburg and Chicago: How the Two Worlds of Neoliberalism Drifted Apart Over Market Power and Monopolies

Early neoliberals tended to view market power and monopolies as phenomena that somehow had to be reined in by an institutional framework in order...

Henry Simons’s Positive Program for Laissez-Faire

The 1930s were a difficult time for classical liberals. In response to the Great Depression, the federal government undertook a massive expansion of its...

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