Bitcoin
A Founder of the Blockchain Discusses New Research on Inherent Limitations to Bitcoin
In the latest Stigler Center working paper, Chicago Booth's Eric Budish argues that game-theoretic constraints imply there are "intrinsic economic limits to how economically...
Does the Growth of Bitcoin Have Anything to Do with Distrust of Government?
The results of the latest Financial Trust Index (FTI) survey, released last week by Chicago Booth and the Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, offer...
Where Will the Crypto Craze Lead? A Venture Capitalist’s View
Can individual cryptocurrencies be programmed with stability in mind and if so, could a plethora of cryptocurrencies exhibit, in the aggregate, stable behaviors?
By now,...
"The Blockchain Is Going to Revolutionize Central Banking and Monetary Policy"
Will governments start using central banks to issue sovereign currency on blockchains? And if so, will that be the end of the fractional reserve...
Blockchains and Corporate Finance: “In a Blockchain Market, Shareholder Activists Might Play Much Less of a Role”
Will blockchain technology lead to less shareholder activism and higher executive compensation? Watch David Yermack’s full Stigler Center lecture on the potential implications of blockchain...
"I Expect That Within the Next 10 Years, Probably Half of the Banks Will be Gone”
Watch David Yermack's full Stigler Center lecture on the potential implications of blockchain technology for the future of finance. First part of a three-part series.
In...
Could Blockchain Technology Alter the Balance of Power Within the Financial System? Q&A with David Yermack
"Blockchain technology is threatening to remake the financial system from the top down in a way that threatens the existence of all the banks,...
Stigler Center Event: David Yermack on Blockchains and the Future of Finance
Yermack, the Albert Fingerhut Professor of Finance and Business Transformation at New York University Stern School of Business, will teach a mini-course of three...
LATEST NEWS
Fiscal Policy
Do Wealth Taxes Significantly Curb Wealth Inequality?
Politicians and governments in the United States and elsewhere have recently proposed or implemented wealth taxes to supplement revenue and reduce wealth inequality. In a new study, Samira Marti, Isabel Z. Martínez, and Florian Scheuer show how decreases in wealth taxes led to increases in wealth inequality in Switzerland, though they find that these decreases alone are not enough to explain the magnitude of widening disparities.
Antitrust and Competition
Merged Firms Offer Less Product Variety
In new research, Enghin Atalay, Alan Sorensen, Christopher Sullivan, and Wanjia Zhu find that mergers and acquisitions often lead to the merged firm offering less product variety than when the two firms operated pre-merger.
Antitrust and Competition
Revising Guideline 6 With Evidence To Establish a Structural Inference for Input Foreclosure
Vertical merger law lacks the structural presumption of horizontal merger law, which shifts the burden from the government to the merging parties to provide evidence that a merger will not produce anticompetitive effects when it is known that the merger will substantially increase market concentration. To improve Guideline 6 of the draft Merger Guidelines concerning vertical foreclosure, Steven Salop develops a three-factor criteria with which the government antitrust agencies can show an analogous structural “inference” that shifts the burden of evidence to the merging parties.
Antitrust and Competition
How US Antitrust Enforcement Against Xerox Promoted Innovation by Japanese Competitors
Xerox invented modern copier technology and was so successful that its brand name became a verb. In 1972, U.S. antitrust authorities charged Xerox with monopolization and eventually ordered the licensing of all its copier-related patents. As new research by Robin Mamrak shows, this antitrust intervention promoted subsequent innovation in the copier industry, but only among Japanese competitors. Nevertheless, their innovations benefited U.S. consumers.
Antitrust and Competition
Revising the Merger Guidelines To Return Antitrust to a Sound Economic and Legal Foundation
The draft Merger Guidelines largely replace the consumer welfare standard of the Chicago School with the lessening of competition principle found in the 1914 Clayton Act. This shift would enable the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division to utilize the full extent of modern economics to respond to rising concentration and its harmful effects, writes John Kwoka.