Corporate Consolidation

New Data Shows the Rise of Corporate Concentration in the US in the Past 100 Years

New research observing 100 years of concentration in economic activities and investment in research and development shows that the dominance of large...

Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (August 11–18)

Elizabeth Warren’s new bill seeks to radically alter US corporate governance; America’s top CEOs earned 312 times more than their average workers last year; regulators...

Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (June 8–16)

The AT&T-Time Warner merger is approved, further fueling the media merger frenzy and providing the Second Gilded Age with “another layer of gold”; net...

Will Repeal of Net Neutrality Accelerate the Trend in Media Consolidation? The History of Cable Suggests "Yes"

The history of cable and cable programming strongly suggests that without specific FCC safeguards, we can expect a massive “arms race” by providers to...

LATEST NEWS

Tim Wu Responds to Letter by Former Agency Chief Economists

Former special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy Tim Wu responds to the November 27 letter signed by former chief economists at the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department Antitrust Division calling for a separation of the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines.

Can the Public Moderate Social Media?

ProMarket student editor Surya Gowda reviews the arguments made by Paul Gowder in his new book, The Networked Leviathan: For Democratic Platforms.

Uninhibited Campaign Donations Risks Creating Oligarchy

In new research, Valentino Larcinese and Alberto Parmigiani find that the 1986 Reagan tax cuts led to greater campaign spending from wealthy individuals, who benefited the most from this policy. The authors argue that a very permissive system of political finance, combined with the erosion of tax progressivity, created the conditions for the mutual reinforcement of economic and political disparities. The result was an inequality spiral hardly compatible with democratic ideals.

Did the Meme Stock Revolution Actually Change Anything?

Many financial commentators thought that the surge of retail investors participating in the stock market, the most notable of whom boosted “meme stocks” like GameStop, would democratize corporate governance and improve prosocial firm behavior, including the promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. In new research, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, and Yoon-Ho Alex Lee find evidence that the exact opposite took place.

The Kroger-Albertsons Merger Will Not Help Grocery Competition

Kroger and Albertsons say they need to merge to compete with Walmart. Claire Kelloway argues that what they really want is Walmart’s monopsony power, and permitting mergers on these grounds will only harm suppliers, workers, and consumers.