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.

The global economy is in the early stages of a second China shock as the Chinese economy moves up the manufacturing value chain to produce advanced technology for export. China’s advantage lies in government subsidies and an artificially suppressed exchange rate. If advanced economies in the West are to avoid the repetition of job loss and continued trade deficits witnessed over the last two decades, or the pyrrhic policies like tariffs implemented to address these harms, they must pursue institutional change, writes Joshua Banerjee.

In new research, evidence from a land titling campaign in the Democratic Republic of Congo shows that formal property rights can do more than secure land: they can give citizens an exit from costly informal obligations, writes Pablo Balán.

Responding to Mark Lemley and Jacob Noti-Victor, Shishene Jing argues that licensing deals struck by incumbent artificial intelligence firms with content owners will not disadvantage smaller AI rivals. Even if such deals establish a legal precedent requiring licenses, content owners have little incentive to actually sue small, cash-poor AI startups, making the precedent toothless in practice.