Ronald Reagan

A Posner-Stigler Smoking Gun?

A memo from George Stigler and Richard Posner to the Reagan administration was recently unearthed. To understand the meaning behind the memo,...

A Richard Posner and George Stigler Memo: “Throttling Back on Antitrust: A Practical Proposal for Deregulation”

A 1980s memo from Richard Posner and George J. Stigler to President-elect Ronald Reagan sheds light on their policy advocation for the...

The Rise, Survival, and Potential Fall of the Reagan-Era Antitrust Consensus

With major antitrust reform in the air, Brian Cheffins explores how and why a now highly controversial antitrust consensus that emerged under...

Like Microsoft, but With More Glitter: The Cheerleading Monopoly Problem

Cheerleading is a huge part of American culture. It’s also an expensive sport, especially after a company called Varsity Brands bought the National Cheerleader...

Data-Driven Ideology: The Problem With Economists' Takeover of Policymaking

According to New York Times journalist Binyamin Appelbaum's recent book The Economists' Hour, economics is not the unbiased science that it pretends to be, but...

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Algorithmic Collusion in the Housing Market

While the development of artificial intelligence has led to efficient business strategies, such as dynamic pricing, this new technology is vulnerable to collusion and consumer harm when companies share the same software through a central platform. Gabriele Bortolotti highlights the importance of antitrust enforcement in this domain for the second article in our series, using as a case study the RealPage class action lawsuit in the Seattle housing market.

The Future Markets Model Explains Meta/Within: A Reply to Herb Hovenkamp

In response to both Herb Hovenkamp’s February 27 article in ProMarket and, perhaps more importantly, also to Hovenkamp’s highly regarded treatise, Lawrence B. Landman, first, shows that the Future Markets Model explains the court’s decision in Meta/Within. Since Meta was not even trying to make a future product, the court correctly found that Meta would not enter the Future Market. Second, the Future Markets Model is the analytical tool which Hovenkamp says the enforcers lack when they try to protect competition to innovate.

The Chicago Boys and the Chilean Neoliberal Project

In a new book, The Chile Project: The Story of the Chicago Boys and the Downfall of Neoliberalism, Sebastian Edwards details the history of neoliberalism in Chile over the past seventy years. The Chicago Boys—a group of Chilean economists trained at the University of Chicago through the U.S. State Department’s “Chile Project”—played a central role in neoliberalism’s ascent during General Augusto Pinochet’s rule. What follows is an excerpt from the book on University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman’s 1975 visit to Chile to meet with Pinochet and business leaders.

Creating a Modern Antitrust Welfare Standard that Integrates Post-Chicago and Neo-Brandeisian Goals

Darren Bush, Mark Glick, and Gabriel A. Lozada argue that the Consumer Welfare Standard  is inconsistent with modern welfare economics and that a modern approach to antitrust could integrate traditional Congressional goals as advocated by the Neo-Brandesians. Such an approach could be the basis for an alliance between the post-Chicago economists and the Neo-Brandesians.

Getting Partisans To Listen to One Another Can Reduce Political Polarization

In new research, Guglielmo Briscese and Michèle Belot find that reminding Americans of shared values can open lines of communication and help reduce political polarization.