History

Carl Schmitt and the Origins of Friedrich Hayek’s Thought on Rent-Seeking

Friedrich Hayek viewed the subject of rent-seeking not from the usual welfare economics perspective, but from a constitutional economics perspective. In a...

How the AT&T Case Can Inform Big Tech Breakups

Breaking up companies that antitrust regulators consider too dominant can be costly and might negatively impact innovation and consumer welfare. As economists...

To Build an Equitable Economy, We Must Understand Capitalism’s Racist Heritage

American capitalism was built on racial exploitation, from the enslavement of Black people to institutionalized discrimination and its structural impact on our...

Resisting Regulatory Capture in the 1857 Financial Crisis

The historical origins of financial crises teaches us about changing attitudes toward government intervention into private markets.

The FTC’s Non-Compete Ban Will Force Questions Over the Scope of its Authority

To understand why a proposed rule could spark a Supreme Court battle over the Federal Trade Commission’s powers to regulate the American...

The Varied Ideologies—and Practices—of Socialist Nations in the Developing World

In an excerpt from his new book Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World, Harvard Business School professor Jeremy Friedman...

Lessons from the Past? How Ordoliberal Competition Theory Can Address Market Power in the Digital Age

Some of the lessons uncovered by ordoliberal thinkers during the interwar period in Germany could help us tackle the current challenges posed...

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...

Plagues Upon the Earth: How Wealth Intersects With Mortality

Kyle Harper’s new book, Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History, shows that the story of disease is...

Looks Can Be Deceiving: Ronald Coase and the Chicago School

Ronald Coase is typically thought of as one of the Chicago School’s brightest lights. But Coase’s relationship with Chicago was always an...

LATEST NEWS

AI For the Antitrust Regulator

Cary Coglianese lays out the potential, and the considerations, for antitrust regulators to use machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms.

Creation over Time in Copyright and Patent

On May 18, the United States Supreme Court decided two intellectual property cases with two seemingly different results. A closer look, however, reveals a complimentary concern with the monopolistic power of first movers and how the legal system should enable innovation from second movers over time, writes Randy Picker.

ESG Standards’ Good, Bad and Ugly

The Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State hosted a virtual event discussing the standards, metrics and disclosures of investments focused on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals. The following is a transcript of the event.

Reregulate.

Lee Hepner and William J. McGee respond to Clifford Winston’s ProMarket piece asserting that further deregulation of the airline industry would resolve problems in the industry. Instead, the authors claim a return to regulation would produce better results for travelers.

A World With Far Fewer Mergers

Brooke Fox and Walter Frick analyze research and ideas presented at the Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference that question the value of mergers.