The United States healthcare system has experienced an expansion of private equity ownership. In new research, Theodosia Stavroulaki argues that private equity acquisitions risk harming healthcare by increasing prices, reducing quality of care, limiting access to care, and hurting the labor force.

Investors have poured billions into using artificial intelligence to discover new drugs, and 2026 is the first real test of whether AI-designed medicines actually helps patients. The boom has genuinely transformed the search for molecules — but that was never the costly, failure-prone part of making a medicine, and there AI has so far had little to add. Capital, and the public subsidies have not yet priced the difference, writes Michael A. Santoro.

In February, the Federal Trade Commission settled with pharmaceutical benefits manager (PBM) Express Scripts. The FTC had sued Express Scripts and two other large PBMs under the long dormant Section 5 of the FTC Act, which targets “unfair methods of competition.” The settlement suggests that the FTC may succeed in addressing the convoluted contracts between PBMs, drug manufacturers, health insurers, and employers that drive up drug prices for Americans. It also opens unchartered territory for antitrust enforcement and the limits of Section 5, argue Fiona Scott Morton and Mariah Smith.

In new research, Renuka Diwan, Paul Eliason, Riley League, Ryan C. McDevitt, James W. Roberts, and Jetson Leder-Luis investigate how Medicare’s shift to a competitive bidding system to reduce prices has inadvertently shifted market share to fraudulent suppliers.

A remedy of “Pay for Half” that limits the share of devices for which Google can pay for default search status, as well as the share of revenue Google can pay its channel parters for that status, offers a middle ground that would help restore competition while preserving revenue for distribution partners, argue Alissa Cooper, Fiona Scott Morton, and Nick Jacobson.

In new research, Reilly S. Steel finds that corporate leaders’ individual political preferences are shifting left, but their aggregate spending remains skewed to the right. 

Although merger review now acknowledges potential harms to labor markets, the analytical tools remain underdeveloped. Shishene Jing proposes identifying “labor market mavericks” as companies essential to maintaining competition among employers and preventing mergers that could reduce wages and other worker benefits.

The Stigler Center has opened applications for its Journalists in Residence Program. Applications are due September 20. The Stigler Center has opened applications for its...