presidential election

How Pfizer’s Vaccine Announcement Demonstrates the Political Power of Firms

By timing the disclosure of the results of its vaccine trial, Pfizer could have influenced the 2020 presidential election. This is worrisome...

The “Turbulent Twenties” Are Just Beginning

Years ago, two academics predicted that an increase in economic inequality would lead to a period of political instability in 2020. Since...

The Pandemic Has Revealed America’s Impatience. But America Will Need Patience in the 2020 Election

The proliferation of mail-in voting is likely to make knowing who won the election take much longer than Americans are used to....

American Oligarch: Michael Bloomberg Reveals His One Remaining Path to the Democratic Nomination

Michael Bloomberg's only real path to the nomination was always a contested convention, where he could be able to further leverage his wealth and...

Who Won the South Carolina Democratic Debate? The ProMarket Panel's Analysis

Is Bernie Sanders inevitable, and is Michael Bloomberg doomed? Which candidate would be best suited to avoid a recession in the US? A ProMarket...

"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...

Why Michael Bloomberg’s Run for President Creates an Unprecedented Media Problem

The first effect of Michael Bloomberg’s campaign and of his conflicts of interest is to reduce the 2020 candidates’ accountability: one of the world's...

Who Won the Democratic Debate? The ProMarket Panel Responds

A panel of ProMarket writers and editors met to watch the third Democratic Debate. Find out what they thought about it.   

Populist Plutocrats as a Political Phenomenon

How can a rich man successfully pose as a representative of the poor and the disenfranchised and become the leader of a populist movement?...

Theory of the Firm Interview Series: John Van Reenen

The second installment in ProMarket’s new interview series: Should the economic theory of the firm be modified? If so, how? In this installment, we...

LATEST NEWS

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.

Why the Kroger-Albertsons Merger Is a Mess for Consumers

Grocers Kroger and Albertsons want to merge, which would make them the second biggest retail food chain and, according to them, enhance their ability to compete with Walmart and Costco and offer lower prices to consumers. Christine P. Bartholomew writes that the promises of more competition and lower prices for consumers are unlikely to manifest, and thus the Federal Trade Commission should block the deal.  

After Neoliberalism

The following is an excerpt from Martin Daunton's new book, "The Economic Government of the World: 1933-2023," out November 14.

US Taxpayers Should Not Be Subsidizing Harmful Big Oil Mergers

Chevron and ExxonMobil claim their announced mergers with Hess and Pioneer take advantage of market efficiencies, but a closer look reveals an antiquated tax provision likely sweetening these dangerous deals. Antitrust authorities must carefully review the serious risks entailed in these proposed mergers. In parallel, the United States federal government needs to end large tax-free reorganizations—the most egregious way in which American taxpayers are subsidizing monopolistic practices, writes Niko Lusiani.