public policy

Politicians and governments in the United States and elsewhere have recently proposed or implemented wealth taxes to supplement revenue and reduce wealth inequality. In a new study, Samira Marti, Isabel Z. Martínez, and Florian Scheuer show how decreases in wealth taxes led to increases in wealth inequality in Switzerland, though they find that these decreases alone are not enough to explain the magnitude of widening disparities.

Ashutosh Bhagwat argues in new research that expecting social media platforms to serve as gatekeepers for the “truth” flounders on economic, organizational, and democratic grounds. In fact, the end of media gatekeepers and elite control over public discourse may be what is necessary to reinvigorate the marketplace of ideas and reduce political polarization.

Economists have proposed two main theories to explain the recent spike in prices. Progressives have attributed the rise in inflation to corporate greed and have suggested price controls in response. Other economists have turned back to the New Consensus in Macroeconomics that arose in the 1970s in response to steep inflation blamed on the large Keynesian fiscal expansion of the preceding decades. Matías Vernengo writes that neither camp has correctly diagnosed the problems with current inflation. Proponents of Greedflation overlook the price stability of the last few decades even as market concentration increased. On the other hand, advocates of the New Consensus similarly forget their history and the commodity shocks and price-wage spiral that were the real culprit for inflation in the 1970s.

Anti-ESG rhetoric from conservative states conflates valid financial evaluations of company and industry prospects with the ideological values of political opponents. Politicians that pass legislation preventing businesses and state agencies from working with financial services with ESG standards will only harm their constituents. Instead, states should encourage competition and variety in financial services, writes Jennifer J. Schulp.

In new research, Marco Grotteria, Max Miller, and S Lakshmi Naaraayanan create and analyze a dataset of more than 12,000 FARA filings to investigate the drivers and outcomes of foreign lobbying of U.S. legislators. Their findings can help inform new laws and regulations that improve government transparency and prevent the more nefarious effects of foreign lobbying.

Would increasing regulation of the U.S. airline industry resolve the issues that Americans have heard about and experienced in the past few months? Clifford...

It has become fashionable for governments to issue “green” bonds to fund the transition to sustainability. However, sovereign green bonds as currently designed have...

As governments and companies look for ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural sequestration offers one promising method to combat climate change. However, for...

The US stands out among developed economies for its comparatively low level of redistribution as a percentage of GDP. Gustavo de Souza examines the...

The modernization of EU antitrust laws muddied the water with regard to the ways that antitrust authorities and courts should handle situations in which...