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Economic History

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.

Antitrust and Competition

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

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

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

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

Henry Simons’s Positive Program for Laissez-Faire

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

Harold Demsetz and Israel Kirzner Understood That Competition Regulates Markets

Peter J. Boettke
Economists Harold Demsetz and Israel Kirzner challenged the prevailing orthodoxy in microeconomic analysis and public policy beginning with their respective work in the 1960s....
Economic History

How Protests Against the Jim Crow Credit Market Changed the Civil Rights Movement

Mehrsa Baradaran
Before the civil rights movement captured the nation’s attention, activists and community groups were protesting against exploitative credit and exclusionary lending practices rooted in...
Economic History

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 industrial corporation...
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 later come...
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 market-like institutional...
Economic History

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 designed to...
Commentary

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

Sebastian Edwards
In conversation with Sebastian Edwards, Arnold C. Harberger reflects on his time at the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. Editor’s note: The...
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The publication of the Stigler Center at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business

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.