economic history

Are Intellectual Property Rights Neoliberal? Yes and No

Today’s global IP regime is often described by critical scholars bluntly as “neoliberal.” But in fact, the topic of intellectual property rights...

A Famed Economist’s Public Company U-Turn

Michael Jensen, a leading late 20th century economist, pivoted from praising public companies in the 1970s to assailing public company governance in...

The Most Famous Article on the Theory of the Firm is Widely Misunderstood

Michael Jensen and William Meckling’s famous 1976 Journal of Financial Economics article has been cited nearly 100,000 times and is often regarded...

“Power Is Evil in Itself”: The Ordoliberal Quest for a Privilege-Free Order

The lesson from the quest of German ordoliberals for a privilege-free order from the 1930s to the 1950s is that once in...

The Most Persistent of All Zombie Ideas: That Taxing the Wealthy Is Destructive to the Economy

Economics can’t tell you what values to have. It can, however, shed light on what to expect from policy that reflects any particular set...

A New Capitalisn't Episode: Did the Economists of the '60s and '70s Ruin the Economy?

Are economists to blame for our current state of affairs? That's the argument Binyamin Appelbaum makes in his book "The Economists' Hour." In this...

“In the Wake of the 2008 Crisis, You Can't Ignore the Influence of Big Business on Economic Policy”

Historian and author Adam Tooze talks to ProMarket about how the financial crisis “remade” American capitalism, why the US response to the crisis was...

Why Are There So Few Bankers on American Corporate Boards?

Relatively few American companies have bankers on their boards. New research reveals that bankers were commonly represented on corporate boards in the 19th century,...

This Is What Monopoly Looks Like: The Italian Tobacco Sector in the Late 19th Century

How does a monopolist know what prices to charge to extract the most profit? A new paper digs into the classic monopolist’s problem with...

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LATEST NEWS

Regulation

Why Have Uninsured Depositors Become De Facto Insured?

Michael Ohlrogge

Due to a change in how the FDIC resolves failed banks, uninsured deposits have become de facto insured. Not only is this dangerous for risk in the banking system, it is not what Congress intends the FDIC to do, writes Michael Ohlrogge.

Antitrust and Competition

Merger Law Reaches Acquirer Incentives and Private Equity Strategies

Steven Salop

Steven C. Salop argues that Section 7 of the Clayton Act prohibits mergers in which the acquiring firm’s unilateral incentives and business strategy are likely to lessen market competition.

Antitrust and Competition

Tim Wu Responds to Letter by Former Agency Chief Economists

Tim Wu

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.

Book Reviews

Can the Public Moderate Social Media?

Surya Gowda

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

Income Inequality

Uninhibited Campaign Donations Risks Creating Oligarchy

Valentino Larcinese, Alberto Parmigiani

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.