Facebook’s latest scandal leads lawmakers to proclaim: “Big tech can no longer be trusted”; New Yorkers vow to resist Amazon’s HQ2 deal; monopolization is undermining public faith in capitalism; and why are US drug prices so high?
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Subsidies to Amazon Are Uneconomical, Un-American, and Unconstitutional
Corporate subsidies are a negative-sum game. They foster crony capitalism, hurt productivity growth and inflict great harm on product market competition.
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Obesity and Globalization: Evidence from Mexico
Has Mexico imported its obesity epidemic from the United States? A new study suggests that the answer to this question is “yes.”
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Ten Years After the Financial Crisis: “We Are Safer, But Not As Safe As We Should and Could Be”
Experts from academia and industry gathered at the University of Oxford to revisit what went wrong in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, whether the actions that were taken since seem sufficient, and the risks that might forestall a new crisis.
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (November 4-11)
The costliest midterm election in US history ends with a victory for Democrats—and for money in politics in general; Amazon and Apple crack down on third-party refurbishers, raising antitrust concerns; and was Amazon’s HQ2 stunt really just a “con”?
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Not Your Typical Short Seller: The Stigler Center Hosts Fahmi Quadir
Quadir, known for betting against Valeant in 2015, will discuss short selling, exposing corporate fraud and thriving in a sometimes-reviled industry lacking diversity in a conversation with Luigi Zingales.
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Why the FTC Should Focus on Labor Monopsony
Economic theory tells us that firms are more likely to exploit labor market power than product market power in the United States today. And it tells us that the government should devote more resources to labor market litigation than to product market litigation.
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Is Market Price Relevant for Minority Shareholder Appraisal Actions?
Vice Chancellor Travis Laster of Delaware Chancery Court has recently cautioned that while courts have given greater deference to market price in appraising fair value, this approach does not elevate “market value” to the governing standard under Delaware’s appraisal statute. The Judge asked for further economic evidence and framework, and his caveat begs at least three questions, write Dirk Hackbarth and Bin Zhou.
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (October 27-November 4)
Facebook is still open to manipulation by malicious political actors; the dialysis industry has spent over $100 million to fight a ballot measure that seeks to regulate it; AT&T does everything it promised not to do in its defense of the Time Warner merger; and can tech workers help police their own employers?
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Does Going to War Increase Veterans’ Religiosity?
Are there really no atheists in foxholes? A new paper looks at the effects of military combat on American service members’ religiosity—and its results do indeed offer some support for that old adage.
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Brazil’s Election Is Yet Another Indication That Facebook Is Too Big to Manage
Facebook’s failure to curb the massive disinformation campaign that preceded Jair Bolsonaro’s election victory shows that it is unable to control the dangerous consequences of its own dominance.
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Digital Platforms’ Targeting Tools Are Opaque and Potentially Dangerous
A lawsuit claims that Facebook inflated video metrics to lure advertisers. Facebook denies, but it’s worth noting that it would be much easier for Facebook to defraud advertisers than for any of its predecessors in traditional media.
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