money in politics
Was the Marketplace of Ideas “Politically Hijacked”?
A Stigler Center panel examines the influence of Big Five tech firms over political discourse and the marketplace of ideas.
At one point during Mark...
Does Direct Democracy Reduce Regulatory Capture?
Does direct democracy make regulatory capture harder for industry? Samantha Eyler-Driscoll looks at a new Stigler Center working paper that examines state-level referenda and...
How China’s Anti-Corruption Campaign Is Moving Financing Away from State-Owned Enterprises
Are anti-corruption reforms effective in reducing economic rent seeking and constraining the influence of special interests? New research from Tsinghua University PBC School of...
Rethinking Stigler’s Theory of Regulation: Regulatory Capture or Deregulatory Capture?
Much government regulation does not fit the logic of Stigler’s theory of anti-competitive regulatory capture. In a new book, Steven Vogel of Berkeley argues...
Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (May 4–May 12)
A whistleblower alleges fraud in the audits of Silicon Valley companies; AT&T acknowledges that hiring Michael Cohen was a "bad mistake"; new analysis finds that...
Return of the State: Banking on Diplomacy
If, as California political legend Jesse M. Unruh once quipped, “money is the mother’s milk of politicians,” it’s reasonable to expect that countries might...
Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (April 28–May 4)
George Mason University faces controversy over its relationship with donors; the former CEO of Volkswagen is charged in relation to the company’s diesel emissions...
Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (April 14–April 28)
Why has Facebook’s scandal not dented its earnings? How much are states and local governments giving to corporations in economic-development incentives? And did CFPB...
Why Democracy Fails to Reduce Inequality: Blame the Brahmin Left
A new paper by Thomas Piketty finds that major parties on both sides of the political spectrum have been captured by elites and warns...
Editors’ Briefing: On Our Radar This Week (April 1–April 7)
This week in political economy.
Facebook acknowledged this week that the Cambridge Analytica data breach affected 87 million users (reportedly including 2.7 million Europeans)—37...
