Income Inequality

Reducing Wealth Inequality Through Wealth Taxes Without Compromising Economic Growth

New research proposes two ways of using wealth taxes to reduce inequality and increase efficiency. Economic inequality has risen significantly within major economies around the...

Davos Elites Love to Advocate for Equality – So Long As Nothing Gets Done

The return to the industrial relations and tax policies of the early 19th century has been spearheaded by people who speak the language of...

The Malleable Demand for Trade Protection: How Political Campaigns Can Easily Manipulate Public Attitudes Toward Public Policy

Where does today’s anti-trade sentiment come from? A new study finds that people are particularly sensitive to job losses and outsourcing due to international...

Facebook, Extreme Inequality, and Globalization: ProMarket’s Top Stories of 2018

As 2018 draws to a close, we look back at ProMarket’s most-read and most-widely shared stories of the past year.     The early mentor to Mark...

The Inequality Paradox: Rising Inequalities Nationally, Diminishing Inequality Worldwide

Workers in emerging economies benefitted from globalization and workers in rich countries, on balance, did not. Overturning globalization, however, will neither work nor bring...

Does Sweden’s Radical Right Reflect Too Much Social Inclusivity, Or Too Little?

Many have attributed the success of the far-right Sweden Democrats to Sweden's open immigration policy. Instead, a new study shows that income inequality and...

Inequality in the Middle East

Survey estimates suggest that inequality in the Middle East is not particularly high despite considerable political conflict. This column uses new ‘distributional national accounts’...

Any Press is Good Press? Study Finds Federal Investigations of University Responses to Sexual Misconduct Cases May Help Enrollments

Despite concerns among administrators that news coverage of campus sexual assault will harm universities’ reputations and bottom lines, a study finds an increase in applications...

When It Comes to Gender Imbalances, Academia’s Ignorance Is Self-Serving

The Ravina vs. Columbia case illustrates that challenging the status quo can be immensely costly. We economists should collectively think about how we can...

Why Every Good Economist Should Be Feminist

As every good economist knows, markets work best when they are competitive. Therefore, every good economist should also be a feminist, defending a level...

Latest news

AI For the Antitrust Regulator

Cary Coglianese lays out the potential, and the considerations, for antitrust regulators to use machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms.

Creation over Time in Copyright and Patent

On May 18, the United States Supreme Court decided two intellectual property cases with two seemingly different results. A closer look, however, reveals a complimentary concern with the monopolistic power of first movers and how the legal system should enable innovation from second movers over time, writes Randy Picker.

ESG Standards’ Good, Bad and Ugly

The Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State hosted a virtual event discussing the standards, metrics and disclosures of investments focused on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals. The following is a transcript of the event.

Reregulate.

Lee Hepner and William J. McGee respond to Clifford Winston’s ProMarket piece asserting that further deregulation of the airline industry would resolve problems in the industry. Instead, the authors claim a return to regulation would produce better results for travelers.

A World With Far Fewer Mergers

Brooke Fox and Walter Frick analyze research and ideas presented at the Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference that question the value of mergers.

The Banking Risks of Central Bank Digital Currencies

The implementation of central bank digital currencies as the primary medium of exchange would exacerbate the flaws of our current fiat system which encourage banks to overextend credit and create liabilities that they cannot redeem. This will worsen the already recurring cycles of financial crises, writes Vibhu Vikramaditya.

The Whig History of the Merger Guidelines

A pervasive "Whig" view of United States antitrust history among scholars and practitioners celebrates the Merger Guidelines' implementation of increasingly sophisticated economic methods since their...