Research

Anticompetitive behavior, such as consolidation, in the health-insurance industry has allowed a small group of insurers to dominate the market. One of the main drivers of this behavior is “adverse selection,” where individuals know more about how sick they are than insurance companies do. To mitigate the risk of paying out more claims than they can cover, insurers often raise their premiums. Kellogg’s Amanda Starc and her colleague argue that, to create a truly healthy health-insurance marketplace, regulators and policymakers need a framework for rethinking the complex interactions between adverse selection and regulatory guardrails.

News media circulates with warnings about speculative bubbles in artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, but history shows that not all bubbles are bad for the economy, and some may even aid long-term growth. In new research, Jared Bernstein, Aneil Kovvali and Jeffery Y. Zhang distinguish between constructive and destructive bubbles and suggest how the government and financial institutions can limit the consequences of the latter.

In new research, Francisco E. Beneke Avila proposes a multifactor test to distinguish between the legitimate exercise of the right to lobbying and efforts to capture areas of public policy. He argues that the latter is an abuse of the firm’s political rights that can justify the intervention of EU competition authorities when corporate political activity leads to a lessening of competition. 

In new research, Benjamin Rosa finds that when states ban affirmative action, minority- and women-run businesses become smaller than other contractors and are less likely to enter the market, but are no more likely to close their businesses entirely. 

In new research, Ricardo Perez-Truglia and Jeffrey Yusof study what drives Americans’ support for antitrust enforcement. They find that information about traditional consumer welfare harms, such as higher prices or less choice, has the largest and most durable impact.

In new research, Li Azinovic-Yang, John D. Kepler, Ava E. Speros, and Christopher R. Stewart find that over the last two decades, companies in the United States have grown to expect customer relationships to last longer, mostly due to higher costs associated with switching to competitors’ products. Over the long term, this lock-in reduces competition and consumer welfare.

The rise of the far right has been a defining feature of political systems in developed democracies over the past two decades. In recent research, Alison Johnston and Juliet Johnson demonstrate that domestic bond investors have become an important constraint on populist governments and their access to capital. 

The current law and economics framework of corporate law rests on four theoretical underpinnings that restrict students’ and regulators’ understanding of the stakes of corporate law. In new research, Mariana Pargendler argues that creating corporate laws that are more attuned to social welfare will require deprogramming its dominant framework.

In recent research, Johnathan S. Hartley and Morris K. Kleiner find that occupational licensing is globally pervasive among both developed and developing nations. However, higher national licensing rates are associated with lower GDP per capita, larger informal sectors, and weaker governance scores.

Summary Teaser: In new research, Jitendra Aswani and William W. Xiong show that countries facing greater risks to their natural assets, from overfishing to deforestation, pay more to borrow, as investors discount their long-run growth prospects. Governments can reduce that premium by implementing green projects that address the risks they actually face, but announcing an intention to do so is not enough.