Covid-19

Event Notes: “China’s Political Economy” in Review

The Stigler Center's "China Political Economy" webinar series returns Thursday, February 9. Here's a reminder of what we covered in our first...

How Culture and Political Ideology Influence Vaccine Uptake

Research has shown that political ideology and partisans’ underlying core values correspond to preferences for different goods and services in the United...

Antitrust Misunderstands Innovation. This Is How We Fix It.

Antitrust misunderstands innovation by focusing almost entirely on incentives to innovate to the neglect of questions regarding the ability to innovate through...

Event Notes: China’s Leadership Transition and What It Means for Its Economy

On Oct. 22, Chinese President Xi Jinping solidified power and an unprecedented third term with the conclusion of the Chinese Communist Party’s...

Event Notes: How Will China Move on from the Covid-19 Pandemic?

Countries around the world have overseen wide-ranging public health responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. On June 10, the Stigler Center hosted a...

How the Covid-19 Pandemic Put Corporate Stakeholder Promises to the Test

Prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, corporate leaders pledged to look after all stakeholders, not just deliver value to shareholders. Did they...

Study: the Covid-19 Eviction Moratoriums Helped Reduce Food Insecurity and Mental Stress

A new study investigates the impact of 2020 Covid-19 rental eviction moratoria on the wellbeing of US households, finding that eviction moratoria...

Challenges to Sound Global Governance for Health

In an excerpt from his new book, Global Health Security: A Blueprint for the Future, Lawrence O. Gostin examines the challenges and...

The Digital Divide During Epidemics: Who Benefits From New Financial Technologies?

A new paper finds that exposure to an epidemic in the current year significantly increases the likelihood that an individual completes financial...

How Twitter Weakened India’s Information Ecosystem

India’s Covid-19 crisis is a reminder that Indian democracy is also in a crisis, partly due to an information ecosystem where facts...

LATEST NEWS

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.

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.

How Anthony Downs’s Analysis Explains Rational Voters’ Preferences for Populism

In new research, Cyril Hédoin and Alexandre Chirat use the rational-choice theory of economist Anthony Downs to explain how populism rationally arises to challenge established institutions of liberal democracy.

The Impact of Large Institutional Investors on Innovation Is Not as Positive as One Might Expect

In a new paper, Bing Guo, Dennis C. Hutschenreiter, David Pérez-Castrillo, and Anna Toldrà-Simats study how large institutional investors impact firm innovation. The authors find that large institutional investors encourage internal research and development but discourage firm acquisitions that would add patents and knowledge to their firms’ portfolios, hampering overall innovation.

The FTC Needs To Focus Arguments on Technological Transitions After High-Profile Losses

Joshua Gray and Cristian Santesteban argue that the Federal Trade Commission's focus in Meta-Within and Microsoft-Activision on narrow markets like VR fitness apps and consoles missed the boat on the real competition issue: the threat to future competition in nascent markets like VR platforms and cloud gaming.