The United States healthcare system has experienced an expansion of private equity ownership. In new research, Theodosia Stavroulaki argues that private equity acquisitions risk harming healthcare by increasing prices, reducing quality of care, limiting access to care, and hurting the labor force.

Investors have poured billions into using artificial intelligence to discover new drugs, and 2026 is the first real test of whether AI-designed medicines actually helps patients. The boom has genuinely transformed the search for molecules — but that was never the costly, failure-prone part of making a medicine, and there AI has so far had little to add. Capital, and the public subsidies have not yet priced the difference, writes Michael A. Santoro.

In February, the Federal Trade Commission settled with pharmaceutical benefits manager (PBM) Express Scripts. The FTC had sued Express Scripts and two other large PBMs under the long dormant Section 5 of the FTC Act, which targets “unfair methods of competition.” The settlement suggests that the FTC may succeed in addressing the convoluted contracts between PBMs, drug manufacturers, health insurers, and employers that drive up drug prices for Americans. It also opens unchartered territory for antitrust enforcement and the limits of Section 5, argue Fiona Scott Morton and Mariah Smith.

In new research, Renuka Diwan, Paul Eliason, Riley League, Ryan C. McDevitt, James W. Roberts, and Jetson Leder-Luis investigate how Medicare’s shift to a competitive bidding system to reduce prices has inadvertently shifted market share to fraudulent suppliers.

Chilean authorities are testing an unofficial “independence rule” that forbids digital platforms from exerting further influence over how business users set their own prices through most-favored-nation clauses. Manuel Abarca Meza assesses how this rule could potentially fit into antitrust case law and whether or not it effectively weighs the risks against market efficiencies.

The federal Buy Clean initiative illustrates how procurement quotas can alter market structure by raising compliance costs and rewarding scale. As states expand their own Buy Clean programs, competition effects deserve the same scrutiny as environmental ones, writes Francesca Chiaradia.

Following a decade of declining youth mental health, many states have attempted to limit children’s access to social media and the internet by banning smartphones in schools. In new research, Henry Saffer finds no evidence that in-school smartphone bans have any effect on the screentime or mental well-being of young Americans.

In new research, Patrick Crawford and Vincent Geloso find that areas in Lower Canada with more newspaper competition were more likely to rebel in Quebec’s 1837 Rebellion. Irrespective of political leaning, newspapers in more competitive markets helped citizens to share grievances and coordinate their actions.