Economists and policy elites love carbon taxes, but voters dislike them. A new study suggests that ideology has a lot to do with it.
Read more
How the Supreme Court Is Rebranding Corruption
In thirteen years of hostile decisions, the Roberts Supreme Court has done all it can to legalize corruption. With the Bridgegate case, it gets a chance to wreak even more havoc and possibly end the use of the term “corruption” as a useful legal concept.
Read more
Global Declining Competition
Studies of the evolution of market power since 2000 have focused mostly on publicly traded US firms. This column introduces a new global study that incorporates private firms and decomposes the aggregate effect into intensive and extensive margins. It shows the increase in markups is broad-based across countries and sectors but is driven by a small number of firms.
Read more
“Following the Money” to Uncover Terrorist Organizations
Critics have argued in recent years that financial counterterrorism is costly and ineffective. But a new Stigler Center working paper shows that it can reduce terrorist attacks and casualties.
Read more
How Reforming Antitrust Can Restore a Competitive Economy
For decades, competition in America has been on the wane, leading to slower economic growth and a gaping chasm of inequality. Antitrust can help reverse the trend, but antitrust doctrines and enforcement actions once thought adequate are proving insufficient. Fixing the problem is urgent.
Read more
The News About Antitrust’s Impending Resurgence Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
The federal antitrust agencies don’t appear to be serious about their recent Big Tech push. And given that the Supreme Court and federal judiciary are firmly in conservative hands, it doesn’t matter—antitrust enforcement won’t come back so soon.
Read more
How Antitrust Became Mainstream, Part 3: The Antimonopoly Political Revolution
In this third and final part of his three-part series on the resurgence of antimonopoly, Matt Stoller explains how the election of Donald Trump helped bring antimonopoly thinking back to the forefront of the political discourse.
Read more
How Antimonopoly Was Revitalized, Part 2: Barack Obama and the End of the End of History
In this second installment of his three-part series on antitrust’s recent resurrection, Matt Stoller discusses the legacy of Obama’s presidency. The real policy for which Obama will be known is not Obamacare or Dodd-Frank, but bailing out the banks after the 2008 financial crisis and helping Americans and the rest of the world understand that liberal democratic rhetoric was really an ornamental cover for a system of concentrated financial and political power.
Read more
Why Antimonopoly Awoke From Its Slumber, Part 1: The Clinton Era’s Failed Utopia
In the first part of a three-part series, Matt Stoller explains why antimonopoly politics is experiencing a resurgence.
Read more
Towards the Giant Three: The Rise and Rise of the Big Three Index Funds
The Big Three index fund managers—BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street Global Advisors—hold a significant proportion of the stock of US public companies, and they continue to grow steadily. There is a real prospect that index funds will continue to grow, and that voting in most significant public companies will come to be dominated by the future “Giant Three,” write Lucian Bebchuk and Scott Hirst.
Read more
How Offshoring by Multinational Corporations Contributed to the Decline of US Manufacturing
The offshoring activities of multinational firms explain about one-third of the aggregate decline in US manufacturing employment, according to a new study.
Read more
We Need to Deal With WhatsApp’s Misinformation Problem
A peculiar feature of WhatsApp groups has made the spread of misinformation much easier. We need better design guidelines for platforms like WhatsApp, ones that can curb disinformation without infringing on user privacy.
Read more