Racial Inequality

To Build an Equitable Economy, We Must Understand Capitalism’s Racist Heritage

American capitalism was built on racial exploitation, from the enslavement of Black people to institutionalized discrimination and its structural impact on our...

Chart of the Week: Minority Underrepresentation in Local US Politics

ProMarket's first-ever Chart of the Week comes from a new paper that studies the underrepresentation gap of ethnic minorities in local US...

Call for Papers: Discrimination in the 21st Century

Ahead of a Becker Friedman Institute/Stigler Center conference on race and gender discrimination that will take place in May, we are seeking...

The Best Political Economy Books of 2021

A scholarly examination of market’s power toll on American workers, the collected works of a pioneering economic thinker, an ambitious narrative of...

Study: the Covid-19 Eviction Moratoriums Helped Reduce Food Insecurity and Mental Stress

A new study investigates the impact of 2020 Covid-19 rental eviction moratoria on the wellbeing of US households, finding that eviction moratoria...

How Sadie Alexander, the First Black Economics PhD, Became a Voice for Black Workers

A whole century has passed since Sadie Alexander became the first African American to receive a PhD in economics in the United...

How Protests Against the Jim Crow Credit Market Changed the Civil Rights Movement

Before the civil rights movement captured the nation’s attention, activists and community groups were protesting against exploitative credit and exclusionary lending practices...

Three Ways Tax Policies Increase the Black-White Racial Wealth Gap

Dorothy Brown, the author of The Whiteness of Wealth, explains how tax breaks for marriage, college, and gifts and inheritance contribute to...

Bethany McLean’s Weekend Reading List: Inequality, Remote Learning and the First Female Recession

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

The Economic Costs of Discriminating Against Top Talent: Insights From Nazi Germany

A new study looks at the discrimination of Jewish managers in Germany in the 1930s and shows how the rise of a...

LATEST NEWS

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.

We Need Better Research on the Relationship Between Market Power and Productivity in the Hospital Industry

Antitrust debates have largely ignored questions about the relationship between market power and productivity, and scholars have provided little guidance on the issue due to data limitations. However, data is plentiful on the hospital industry for both market power and operating costs and productivity, and researchers need to take advantage, writes David Ennis.