Cryptocurrencies

Decrypting Crypto

The following is an excerpt from Data Money: Inside Cryptocurrencies, Their Communities, Markets, and Blockchains by Koray Caliskan, now out at Columbia University Press.

Crypto-Influencers Give Poor Investment Advice — and the SEC is Taking Notice

New research reveals that cryptocurrency advice from social media influencers could lead investors to lose money on average. Are regulators doing enough...

The Incoming Currency War

Four powerful forces—cryptocurrencies, the decoupling of geographical and monetary boundaries, ad-based digital platforms’ foray into the world of payments, and the value...

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...

LATEST NEWS

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.

Innovators Respond to Their Presidential Candidate Winning With More Innovation

Does an inventor’s political identity influence their productivity? In a new paper, Joseph Engelberg, Runjing Lu, William Mullins, and Richard Townsend examine the impacts of the 2008 and 2016 United States presidential elections on Democrat and Republican inventors, with a particular focus on the quantity and quality of patents after the country elects a new president.

Letter to the Editor: Former FTC and DOJ Chief Economists Urge Separation of Economic and Legal Analysis in Merger Guidelines

Seventeen former chief economists of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division urge current Agency heads to separate the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines to strengthen the role of the latter in merger review.