Luigi Zingales

Capitalisn’t: What’s in the Twitter Files and What Does It Mean?

In the March 30 episode of Capitalisn’t, Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales discuss the Twitter Files, why so much of the mainstream...

Nobel Laureate Oliver Hart on Empowering Twitter’s Shareholders

In an interview with ProMarket, Nobel laureate Oliver Hart explains why broadening our perspective on fiduciary duty beyond maximizing shareholder wealth could...

"You Can Put the Monopoly Tiger in a Cage but You Cannot Transform a Tiger Into a Vegan"

In an extensive interview with the Swiss news website TheMarket.ch, Luigi Zingales discusses ways to deal with Big Tech and the impact of the...

Twitter Refused to Promote the New Capitalisn’t Episode: This Is a Problem for Free Speech (and for American Health Care)

Twitter banned political ads from its platform but has full discretion in deciding what constitutes a "political ad." The Stigler Center tried to promote...

Walmart and Gun Control: Should Companies Self-Regulate When the Government Doesn’t Act? A New Capitalisn’t Episode

The biggest retailer in the US decided to end all handgun ammunition sales, and the four largest automakers announced a private deal with California...

Dear Graduates, Here’s What You Can Do to Change Capitalism For the Better

Delivering UChicago’s 532nd Convocation address, Luigi Zingales advised young graduates to embrace their power as consumers, workers, and citizens and fight corporate monopolies. Dear...

Prize-Winning Innovations in Measuring Civic Capital and Its Effects

The European Economic Association has announced that this year’s Hicks Tinbergen medal will go to ProMarket editor and Stigler Center faculty director Luigi Zingales...

LATEST NEWS

Uninhibited Campaign Donations Risks Creating Oligarchy

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.

Did the Meme Stock Revolution Actually Change Anything?

Many financial commentators thought that the surge of retail investors participating in the stock market, the most notable of whom boosted “meme stocks” like GameStop, would democratize corporate governance and improve prosocial firm behavior, including the promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. In new research, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, and Yoon-Ho Alex Lee find evidence that the exact opposite took place.

The Kroger-Albertsons Merger Will Not Help Grocery Competition

Kroger and Albertsons say they need to merge to compete with Walmart. Claire Kelloway argues that what they really want is Walmart’s monopsony power, and permitting mergers on these grounds will only harm suppliers, workers, and consumers.

Innovators Respond to Their Presidential Candidate Winning With More Innovation

Does an inventor’s political identity influence their productivity? In a new paper, Joseph Engelberg, Runjing Lu, William Mullins, and Richard Townsend examine the impacts of the 2008 and 2016 United States presidential elections on Democrat and Republican inventors, with a particular focus on the quantity and quality of patents after the country elects a new president.

Letter to the Editor: Former FTC and DOJ Chief Economists Urge Separation of Economic and Legal Analysis in Merger Guidelines

Seventeen former chief economists of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division urge current Agency heads to separate the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines to strengthen the role of the latter in merger review.