Friedman 50 years later

eBook: Milton Friedman 50 Years Later, a Reevaluation

Over the past couple of months, ProMarket has hosted a lively debate on whether Milton Friedman was right or wrong when he...

Corporate Responsibility and The Two Minds of Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman had two inconsistent minds: That of an economist and an ideologue. The view that maximizing profits without constraint is a...

Friedman’s Legacy: From Doctrine to Theorem

Friedman was more right than his detractors claim and more wrong than his supporters would like us to believe. However, after 50...

The Purpose of Business is to Solve Problems of Society, Not to Cause Them

Claims that a stakeholder-focused system of corporate governance cannot succeed in the US are perverse because they take as given that corporations...

Can Institutional Investors Solve Societal Issues When Governments Fail to Do So?

A new study looks into the social costs associated with private prisons to show that privatization may come with social trade-offs when...

Bringing Ethics Back to Friedman’s Call to Purpose for the Next 50 Years

Fifty years ago, Friedman compellingly presented his argument for shareholder primacy. But as currently implemented, shareholder primacy threatens the unifying purposes that...

Milton Friedman and the Need for Justice

Milton Friedman predicated his shareholder value maximization credo on the strong implicit and explicit assumptions that the rules of society protect stakeholders...

There Is a Direct Line from Milton Friedman to Donald Trump’s Assault on Democracy

Milton Friedman believed that corporations have a social responsibility to play within the rules of the game. But corporations aren’t just players...

Strength in Numbers: Using Data to Track Diversity and Inclusion

Recent protests against racism and police brutality, along with the #MeToo movement, have increased pressure on businesses to measure and improve their...

Shareholder Value and Social Responsibility Are Not At Odds

Being socially responsible can, and frequently does, make good business sense. There are plenty of opportunities for companies to do well by...

LATEST NEWS

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.

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.

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.

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.

We Need Better Research on the Relationship Between Market Power and Productivity in the Hospital Industry

Antitrust debates have largely ignored questions about the relationship between market power and productivity, and scholars have provided little guidance on the issue due to data limitations. However, data is plentiful on the hospital industry for both market power and operating costs and productivity, and researchers need to take advantage, writes David Ennis.