In new research, Sam Peltzman finds that Americans are significantly less happy than they were before Covid-19, even with the pandemic now in the rearview mirror. Those groups that had fared the best before Covid—white Americans, the wealthiest, college educated, and Republicans—were hit the hardest.

Antitrust agencies were right to suspect that Netflix’s bid for Warner Bros. Discovery would have harmed consumers, content creators, and rival streaming platforms. They needed the consumer welfare standard to show how, writes Sean D. Reyes.

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.

Julia Cagé, Caroline Le Pennec, and Elisa Mougin discuss their recent research on France’s 1995 ban on corporate contributions to political campaigns. The ban pushed candidates to de-emphasize local politics in favor of national issues and, in many cases, adopt more extreme rhetoric.

In a forthcoming paper in the Yale Journal on Regulation, Stefan Bechtold, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci, Edoardo Martino, and Gideon Parchomovsky examine how smart contracts are transforming financial contracting by creating enforceable rights that bind third parties without the legal formalities property law has always required. This “property without law” phenomenon enhances financial efficiency while exposing the public to systemic risks beyond the reach of existing regulation.

In new research, Alexander Furnas, Timothy LaPira, and Clare Brock find that most politically active organizations engage in either campaign contributions or lobbying, but rarely both.The findings have implications for regulation and future academic research.