Policy
2023 Antitrust and Competition Conference: Call for Papers
The Stigler Center is inviting submissions of short academic articles (up to 3000 words) focused on the development of a legal/economic...
Political Polarization Has Changed the Way States Govern
New research finds that since the 2000s, US states are most likely to adopt laws enacted by other politically aligned states. In...
The Mechanisms of Regulatory Capture
To mark the 50-year anniversary of George Stigler’s seminal piece, “The Theory of Economic Regulation” we are publishing a new eBook examining...
Larry Summers Cautions Antitrust Regulators Against Broad-Brush Policy
In a wide-ranging interview with ProMarket, Summers expands on recent criticism of top antitrust enforcement officials, efforts to stymie Big Tech, monopsony,...
What Comes Next for Economic Policies to Combat Covid-19? A Conversation Between Six Booth Faculty
As the Covid-19 crisis evolves from a temporary shock into what seems like a long-term catastrophe, six finance scholars from Chicago Booth—Douglas...
Is Regulation Jeopardizing Policy Response to Coronavirus Crisis? Sendhil Mullainathan and Richard Thaler Collect Red-tape Stories
Two of the most well-known University of Chicago economists launched a website to collect examples of regulations that are limiting the United States' reaction to...
A New Capitalisn't Episode: Did the Economists of the '60s and '70s Ruin the Economy?
Are economists to blame for our current state of affairs? That's the argument Binyamin Appelbaum makes in his book "The Economists' Hour." In this...
Does Ownership of Financial Assets Lead Voters to Support Republicans?
Does owning financial assets lead voters to support Republicans? New research on the liberty bonds of World War I suggests the story may be...
Earnings Inequality: The Implications of the Rapidly Rising Cost of Employer-Provided Health Insurance
The problem of rising healthcare costs cannot be fixed by the current prescription of redistributive policies. Policymakers must redirect their focus.
Concern about income inequality...
LATEST NEWS
Antitrust and Competition
Revising Guideline 6 With Evidence To Establish a Structural Inference for Input Foreclosure
Vertical merger law lacks the structural presumption of horizontal merger law, which shifts the burden from the government to the merging parties to provide evidence that a merger will not produce anticompetitive effects when it is known that the merger will substantially increase market concentration. To improve Guideline 6 of the draft Merger Guidelines concerning vertical foreclosure, Steven Salop develops a three-factor criteria with which the government antitrust agencies can show an analogous structural “inference” that shifts the burden of evidence to the merging parties.
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.