Misinformation
Misinformation
Social Media Should Not Be Gatekeepers
Ashutosh Bhagwat argues in new research that expecting social media platforms to serve as gatekeepers for the “truth” flounders on economic, organizational, and democratic grounds. In fact, the end of media gatekeepers and elite control over public discourse may be what is necessary to reinvigorate the marketplace of ideas and reduce political polarization.
Misinformation
Higher Educational Attainment Equips Voters To Detect Fake News
Access to the internet and the rise of social media has overloaded voters with information and exposed them to a proliferation of fake news. Using political budget cycles, or the tendency for politicians to increase the budget in run-up to elections to win more votes, as a proxy for misinformation, Fabio Padovano and Pauline Mille show in new research that voters who score higher on the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment and achieve a higher level of education are better able to hold politicians to account.
Misinformation
Political Misinformation Thrives on Media Competition
In new research, Arseniy Samsonov builds a model showing how having available to the public a multitude of media outlets and social media platforms would not help reduce misinformation from politicians. Rather, monopolistic power could enable these outlets to retain control over the narratives around the information that these politicians provide to journalists and platforms in exchange for publicity and coverage, thus reducing misinformation.
Big Tech
Economists Agree That Stronger Legal Liability for Online Platforms Would Reduce Disinformation
Will increasing the liability of internet platforms mitigate disinformation? Economists weighed in on the effects of limiting or repealing protections for Big Tech through a recent survey from the Forum for the Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets—previously the Initiative on Global Markets—at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Big Tech
Capitalisn’t: What’s in the Twitter Files and What Does It Mean?
In the March 30 episode of Capitalisn’t, Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales discuss the Twitter Files, why so much of the mainstream...
Misinformation
The Challenges of Regulating Disinformation
In response to rising concerns about political disinformation, governments have introduced a slew of interventions. Federico Vaccari warns in new research that...
Latest news
Research
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.
Antitrust and Competition
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.
Antitrust and Competition
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.
Book Excerpts
After Neoliberalism
The following is an excerpt from Martin Daunton's new book, "The Economic Government of the World: 1933-2023," out November 14.
Antitrust and Competition
US Taxpayers Should Not Be Subsidizing Harmful Big Oil Mergers
Chevron and ExxonMobil claim their announced mergers with Hess and Pioneer take advantage of market efficiencies, but a closer look reveals an antiquated tax provision likely sweetening these dangerous deals. Antitrust authorities must carefully review the serious risks entailed in these proposed mergers. In parallel, the United States federal government needs to end large tax-free reorganizations—the most egregious way in which American taxpayers are subsidizing monopolistic practices, writes Niko Lusiani.
Book Excerpts
Seeing Others
In an excerpt from her new book, Seeing Others, sociologist Michèle Lamont describes the impact of neoliberal ideas on the working class.
Fiscal Policy
How Well Consumers Know Prices Matters for Tax Policy
The effectiveness of tax policy depends on whether sellers pass on changes in tax rates to consumers through changes in price. In new research, Felix Montag, Robin Mamrak, Alina Sagimuldina, and Monika Schnitzer investigate how this tax pass-through in turn depends on how much consumers know about prices. They show that if consumers are not aware of how prices for the same product vary between sellers, then they will be unaffected by tax changes intended to increase or decrease consumption.
