private equity

Are “Bankruptcy Directors” Bad for Creditors?

A new paper studies the rise of so-called “bankruptcy directors,” typically former bankruptcy lawyers, investment bankers, or distressed debt traders who join...

It Is Such a Small World: The Market-Design Academic Community Evolved in a Business Network

Private equity funds such as Michael Dell's MSD Capital made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from the 2017 FCC spectrum...

Bethany McLean’s Weekend Reading List: Free Money, Hospitals, and Private Equity Firms

Corruption, lobbying, corporate malfeasance, and frauds: a weekly unconventional selection of must-read articles by investigative journalist Bethany McLean. 

Here’s How Covid-19 Is Boosting Monopolization and Market Power

Monopolization and consolidation can happen for what seem to be good, or least necessary, reasons. How we respond as a society depends...

The Coronavirus Crisis Has Exposed Private Equity’s Unsustainable Business Model

Private equity portfolio companies are heavily indebted, and they aren’t generating enough cash to service debts. The steady increase in asset values...

The Cantillon Effect: Why Wall Street Gets a Bailout and You Don’t

According to the 18th-century French banker and philosopher Richard Cantillon, who benefits when the state prints money is based on its institutional setup. In...

How Private Equity Companies Are Lobbying to Profit from The Covid-19 Economic Fallout

Private equity funds aren’t just seeking to save the investments they already have, but to get access to more capital to invest in a...

Bethany McLean’s Weekend Reading List: Coronavirus, the Sugar Conspiracy, and Blackstone

Corruption, lobbying, corporate malfeasance, and frauds: a weekly unconventional selection of must-read articles by investigative journalist Bethany McLean.      Yes, yes, I'm obsessed with the rise...

Bethany McLean’s Weekend Reading List: Ghosn's Escape, Apollo's Founder, and Leveraged Loans

Corruption, lobbying, corporate malfeasance, and frauds: a weekly unconventional selection of must-read articles by investigative journalist Bethany McLean.    This week is all Bloomberg, all the...

A Complicated Villain: Is Elizabeth Warren Right About Private Equity?

In a new episode of their podcast Capitalisn't, Kate Waldock and Luigi Zingales discuss one of the most hated industries of America: private equity. Democratic...

LATEST NEWS

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.

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.

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.

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.

The FTC Needs To Focus Arguments on Technological Transitions After High-Profile Losses

Joshua Gray and Cristian Santesteban argue that the Federal Trade Commission's focus in Meta-Within and Microsoft-Activision on narrow markets like VR fitness apps and consoles missed the boat on the real competition issue: the threat to future competition in nascent markets like VR platforms and cloud gaming.