economists

The Dawn of Antitrust and the Egalitarian Roots of the Sherman Act

While it isn’t particularly controversial that concentrated economic power was a legislative target of the Sherman Act, when read as a corollary...

Towards a More Complete Understanding of Market Power and Consumer Harm in Antitrust Law

Antitrust law currently tends to disregard non-consumer harms and the potential influence of companies on policymaking. A new paper explores how antitrust...

Populism at the FTC Upsets the Antitrust Religion of Consumer Welfare: A Reply to Sokol and Wickelgren

Institutional change, on any fundamental level, will have those that seek to defend the status quo up in arms. But in order...

How to Fix the Courts’ Misuse of Economics

Economics has a valuable role to play in antitrust enforcement, but the courts often base their antitrust decisions on unfounded empirical claims...

The Chicago Planning Program and the Interdisciplinary Tradition of the Chicago School

The Chicago Planning Program, an interdisciplinary program that operated at the University of Chicago between 1947 and 1956, is an often-neglected part...

The Unintended Economist: How Thorstein Veblen Pivoted From Philosophy to Economics

In an excerpt from his book Veblen: The Making of an Economist Who Unmade Economics, Charles Camic explores the connection between Thorstein...

The Invention of Economic Growth: The Forgotten Origins of Gross Domestic Product in American Institutionalist Economics

Contemporary critiques of GDP’s role in policymaking see it as an ideological abstraction, emblematic of neoliberalism, that misrepresents “real” economic conditions. What...

Cogs and Monsters: Is Economics Destined to Remain a Dismal Science?

In her bold new book Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be, Cambridge professor Diane Coyle offers a...

Academic Gatekeepers, Real and Imagined, Are Threatening the Credibility of the Field of Political Finance 


One objective of political finance is to hold power to account. However, gatekeeping, both direct and indirect, is keeping important work from...

Buchanan’s Samaritan’s Dilemma

The Samaritan’s dilemma is not only about the detrimental effects help can have on the beneficiaries. As James Buchanan explained in his...

LATEST NEWS

How Many Banks Are at Risk of Insolvency Right Now?

Given the recent banking turmoil and failure of SVB and Signature and issues in First Republic, it is important to understand the...

The Challenges of Regulating Disinformation

In response to rising concerns about political disinformation, governments have introduced a slew of interventions. Federico Vaccari warns in new research that...

India’s Evolving Industrial Policy Is Critical for Realizing Its Development Vision

Industrial policy was once so out of fashion that it was jokingly called “the policy that shall not be named.” Now it’s...

Can Twitter Be a Force for Good? Social Media Helps Curb Corporate Misconduct

Collective shaming on social media is crucial in reducing corporate misbehavior — and society would be significantly worse off without watchdog platforms.

The Historical Cost of Populism

Most work on populism has investigated the reasons why voters choose populist leaders and governments. In new research, Moritz Schularick,  Christoph Trebesch,...