elections
Elections Hinder Companies’ Access to Credit
A large body of literature has produced uncertain conclusions about how elections affect firms’ access to credit. In a wide-ranging analysis of...
What Citizens United Did Not Predict and Why It’s Time To Reconsider
Citizens United v. FEC stands in the public eye as the U.S. Supreme Court case that flooded U.S. elections with “dark money”...
Electoral College Reform: New Problems or Real Solutions?
Each electoral system creates specific incentives to (mis)allocate government resources. Would putting the National Popular Vote (NPV) in lieu of the Electoral...
What Saved American Democracy from Donald Trump?
Despite President Donald Trump's attempts to undermine it, the American democracy seems to have survived. We now need to analyze more closely...
How Pfizer’s Vaccine Announcement Demonstrates the Political Power of Firms
By timing the disclosure of the results of its vaccine trial, Pfizer could have influenced the 2020 presidential election. This is worrisome...
The Pandemic Has Revealed America’s Impatience. But America Will Need Patience in the 2020 Election
The proliferation of mail-in voting is likely to make knowing who won the election take much longer than Americans are used to....
How Political Conflict Shapes Macroeconomics: Alberto Alesina’s Intellectual Legacy
One of the most respected economists of his generation, Harvard professor Alberto Alesina suddenly died at 63. His friend and colleague Guido...
The Electoral Effect of the Virus: How the Coronavirus Is Impacting Democratic Primaries
Compared to 2016, turnout was 22 percent higher (on average) for states voting on Super Tuesday, before Covid-19 emergency measures in the United States....
Many Republicans Are Skeptical About Coronavirus. Research Suggests That Republican Politicians Could Change That
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is skeptical of climate change, supports teaching creationism in public schools, and opposes stem cell research. That's exactly why...
What’s Really at Stake in Poland’s Elections: Nativists Want to Impose a New, Anti-Liberal Notion of Normalcy
Religion is the new priority for anti-liberal, anti-free-trade populist parties in Europe. A victory by Poland’s nativist Law and Justice (PiS) party will pose a...
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Antitrust and Competition
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.
Antitrust and Competition
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.
Economic History
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.
Antitrust and Competition
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.
Antitrust and Competition
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.
