economic history

Corporate Sovereigns and the Emergence of State Sovereignty: A Closer Look at the East India Company

A new data collection has made it possible to reveal the self-sovereignty of the English East India Trading Company that produced a...

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...

Why Jean Fourastié’s Theory of Economic Development is Still Relevant Today

In 1949, the innovative French economist and policymaker Jean Fourastié introduced a theory of growth and technological development that economists could still...

The Rise, Survival, and Potential Fall of the Reagan-Era Antitrust Consensus

With major antitrust reform in the air, Brian Cheffins explores how and why a now highly controversial antitrust consensus that emerged under...

How China Became a Global Economic Powerhouse Through an Idiosyncratic Approach to Market Capitalism

Chinese reformers after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 agreed that it was necessary for China to move towards marketization, but...

The Communist Origins of China’s Embrace of Markets

In an excerpt from his book Market Maoists: The Communist Origins of China’s Capitalist Ascent, Jason M. Kelly explores the commercial relationships...

What Economists Mean When They Say “Consumer Welfare Standard”

Though coined by academic economists, the term “consumer welfare standard” has been captured and changed by the economic school of thought known...

How the Free Software and the IP Wars of the 1990s and 2000s Presaged Today’s Toxic, Concentrated Internet

How did the internet evolve from a relatively decentralized, hybrid, and democratizing space toward a concentrated, privatized environment controlled by a handful...

When Milton Friedman Sided With Keynes Over Hayek on Inflation

In an excerpt from his book Samuelson Friedman: The Battle Over the Free Market, Nicholas Wapshott explores the disagreements between Friedman and...

How Manufacturing’s Lobby Won and Lost its Political Influence

What happens when supporting capitalism hurts capitalists? Do business lobbies ever control the economy to the extent we think they do? The...

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LATEST NEWS

News

Delaware: The State Where Companies Can Vote

Hal Weitzman

Adapted from What’s the Matter with Delaware: How the First State Has Favored the Rich, Powerful, and Criminal—and How It Costs Us...

Antitrust and Competition

The NCAA Goes After College Athletes’ NIL Money—Here are the Antitrust Implications for Workers and Consumers

Ted Tatos

Having lost in the Supreme Court on student-athlete academic benefits, the NCAA has signaled a continuing attempt to suppress competition in the...

Corporate Governance

Have Business Roundtable Companies Lived Up to Their Stakeholder Commitments?

Lucian Bebchuk, Roberto Tallarita

In 2019, more than 100 CEOs of US public companies signed a Business Roundtable statement in which they pledged to deliver value...

Inequality

Do Protests Matter At All for Shifting Government Policy Around Economic Redistribution?

Belinda Archibong

New research on the effectiveness of protests on government distributions provides insights into the political incentives of a country’s leadership and the...

Antitrust and Competition

Mergers and Smoking Guns

Erik Peinert

A recently uncovered memo from George Stigler and Richard Posner reveals how they thought about antitrust and merger policy in advising the...