Money in Politics

Academic Literature Shows: The Problems with Regulating Campaign Finance Are Deeper Than Mere Lack of Political Will

The experience of regulating campaign finance in the last four decades tells us that the "donor class" has found ways to turn wild once and...

In the 2016 Presidential Election, Only 0.4 Percent of Donations Were Made by Donors Who Donated to Multiple Candidates

In the 2016 election, Donald Trump received few donations from people who had donated to other candidates in the Republican primary; the opposite occurred...

Employees of Large Companies Favor Hillary Clinton

Clinton received overwhelming support from workers in the banking, tech, and mobile industries. 98 percent of the total amount raised by workers at financial institutions...

Donald Trump and the Political Economy of Real Estate Tax in the US: Q&A With Professor Edward Kleinbard

Edward Kleinbard from the University of Southern California explains how Donald Trump was potentially able to lose nearly a billion dollars of his investors’...

Donation Preferences: Republicans Outnumbered in Academia

Vast majority of faculty and staff members from universities support Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump's percentage of donations from faculty and staff is on average 0.5...

The Real Lesson From Brexit

A widespread mistrust of experts can lead to political decisions, like Brexit, that might have negative consequences for the very people who vote for them. How...

Donald Trump, Crony Capitalist

The sleep of reason produces monsters, at least according to Spanish painter Francisco Goya. What happens when the political reason is intoxicated by vested...

Latest news

Uninhibited Campaign Donations Risks Creating Oligarchy

In new research, Valentino Larcinese and Alberto Parmigiani find that the 1986 Reagan tax cuts led to greater campaign spending from wealthy individuals, who benefited the most from this policy. The authors argue that a very permissive system of political finance, combined with the erosion of tax progressivity, created the conditions for the mutual reinforcement of economic and political disparities. The result was an inequality spiral hardly compatible with democratic ideals.

Did the Meme Stock Revolution Actually Change Anything?

Many financial commentators thought that the surge of retail investors participating in the stock market, the most notable of whom boosted “meme stocks” like GameStop, would democratize corporate governance and improve prosocial firm behavior, including the promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. In new research, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, and Yoon-Ho Alex Lee find evidence that the exact opposite took place.

The Kroger-Albertsons Merger Will Not Help Grocery Competition

Kroger and Albertsons say they need to merge to compete with Walmart. Claire Kelloway argues that what they really want is Walmart’s monopsony power, and permitting mergers on these grounds will only harm suppliers, workers, and consumers.

Innovators Respond to Their Presidential Candidate Winning With More Innovation

Does an inventor’s political identity influence their productivity? In a new paper, Joseph Engelberg, Runjing Lu, William Mullins, and Richard Townsend examine the impacts of the 2008 and 2016 United States presidential elections on Democrat and Republican inventors, with a particular focus on the quantity and quality of patents after the country elects a new president.

Letter to the Editor: Former FTC and DOJ Chief Economists Urge Separation of Economic and Legal Analysis in Merger Guidelines

Seventeen former chief economists of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division urge current Agency heads to separate the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines to strengthen the role of the latter in merger review.

Why the Kroger-Albertsons Merger Is a Mess for Consumers

Grocers Kroger and Albertsons want to merge, which would make them the second biggest retail food chain and, according to them, enhance their ability to compete with Walmart and Costco and offer lower prices to consumers. Christine P. Bartholomew writes that the promises of more competition and lower prices for consumers are unlikely to manifest, and thus the Federal Trade Commission should block the deal.  

After Neoliberalism

The following is an excerpt from Martin Daunton's new book, "The Economic Government of the World: 1933-2023," out November 14.