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Chris Hughes

Markets Have Always Needed the State

The following is an excerpt from Chris Hughes’ new book, “Marketcrafters: the 100-Year Struggle to Shape the American Economy,” now out at Simon & Schuster. You can listen to Hughes discuss his book with Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales on a new Capitalisn't episode here.

COMMENTARY

Political Economy, Blind Spots, and a Challenge to Academics

Anat Admati
Anat Admati calls on economists and academics to engage with governance and political economy...

RESEARCH

The DMA Whistleblower Tool Needs a Revamp

Sarah Hinck and Jasper van den Boom
In new research, Sarah Hinck and Jasper van den Boom argue that the European Union’s Digital Markets Act’s (DMA) whistleblower tool does not yet bring enough to the table to effectively incentivize potential informants to report on Big Tech violations.
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Antitrust and Competition

Assessing the Technical Feasibility of a Google Chrome Divestiture

Eric Rescorla and Alissa Cooper
In a new report, Eric Rescorla and Alissa Cooper analyze how Google’s browser, Chrome, could operate successfully as an independent entity if the court presiding over Google Search orders its divestiture.
Commentary

The House Budget Bill Is One Big Beautiful Boon for Code Cartels

Meher Sethi
Meher Sethi argues that a little-noticed provision in the federal budget recently passed by the House will gut state laws protecting consumers from algorithmic price-fixing.
Commentary

Brazil’s Efforts To Address Election Disinformation Illustrate the Difficulties of Protecting the Marketplace of Ideas

Caio Mario da Silva Pereira Neto
Caio Mario S. Pereira Neto reflects on the discussions at the Stigler Center’s 2025 Antitrust and Competition Conference and addresses the problems that confront Brazil’s courts as they navigate the tradeoffs between removing disinformation that threatens electoral integrity and observing constitutional protections for freedom of expression.
Antitrust and Competition

A Pro-Competitive Handbook for Policymakers to Unlock Digital Competition

Fiona Scott Morton
Fiona Scott Morton introduces her new book on how regulators and policymakers can promote competition and fairness in digital markets.
Antitrust and Competition

Telecommunications Markets Are Consolidating Again. Americans Should Look to the Public Option

Sean Gonsalves
In recent weeks, a spate of mergers has been announced in telecommunications markets. The activity endangers Americans’ access to affordable and reliable internet services. Rather than continue to depend on private companies to provide essential internet services, cities should look to the many communities that have provided significantly lower-cost and higher-quality public internet connectivity, writes Sean Gonsalves. 
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READING LISTS

Health Care

Americans spend significantly more on health care than any other country. Why? Answers to this question range from hospital monopolies to perverse incentives to opaque pricing to medical licensing to pharmaceutical firms abusing IP practices to “creeping consolidation.” Why is the US health care system so broken? And what can antirust do about it? Catch-up on our coverage of antitrust and the US health care system.

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Antitrust and Competition

Is Private Equity’s Involvement in Healthcare Really Harmful?

Anthony LoSasso, Ge Bai and Lawton Robert Burns
Anthony T. LoSasso, Ge Bai, and Lawton Robert Burns argue that critics of private equity’s involvement in healthcare ignore that it is often the only financial lifeline available to distressed healthcare providers and can introduce an improvement in outcomes, including quality of care.
Antitrust and Competition

How Private Equity Hurts the Healthcare Workforce

Theodosia Stavroulaki
Theodosia Stavroulaki reviews how the involvement of private equity in American healthcare leads to, among other negative outcomes, burnout and stress among healthcare workers, particularly physicians. She writes that the consequences could cripple America’s healthcare system.
Antitrust and Competition

Does Private Equity Harm the Welfare of Residents in Nursing Homes?

Robert Field
Robert I. Field argues that private equity’s impact on price competition among nursing homes is limited because prices are mostly determined by Medicaid. However, private equity does impact quality and labor outcomes, which deserve greater government scrutiny.
Antitrust and Competition

Does Private Equity Harm Competition in the Hospital Industry?

Brent Fulton
Brent Fulton discusses private equity’s investments in hospitals and assesses the risks it presents to key stakeholders: private equity investors, debt investors, patients, and the government. He argues financial transparency regulation is needed so fraudulent transfer and bankruptcy laws can be enforced to reduce uncompensated risk being borne by patients and the government (ultimately taxpayers).

George J. Stigler, one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1982 “for his seminal studies of industrial structures, functioning of markets, and causes and effects of public regulation.” His research upended the idea that government regulation was effective at correcting private-market failures. Stigler introduced the idea of regulatory capture, in which regulators could be dominated by special interests. These regulators would work for the benefit of large, monied organizations rather than the public good. Catch up on ProMarket's coverage of his legacy.

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Antitrust and Competition

Lessons From the EU and UK for Strengthening India’s Digital Competition Regime

Amber Darr and Madhavi Singh
As India contemplates adopting its Digital Competition Bill, Amber Darr and Madhavi Singh examine lessons from the European Union’s and United Kingdom’s legislative forays into digital markets. They argue that India must rethink its reliance on formal long-form enforcement and invest in regulatory capacity if it hopes to deliver an ex ante regime for a fair and contestable digital economy.
Commentary

Delaware’s SB21 Continues 150 Years of Corporate Power and Regulatory Capture

Christina M. Sautter
Christina M. Sautter writes that the passage of Senate Bill 21, which rebalances power away from shareholders to corporate management, represents a 150-year-long development in corporate law spurred by regulatory capture that has removed countless restrictions on firm behavior.
Academic Capture

How Conflicts of Interest Shape Trust in Academic Work

John M. Barrios, Filippo Lancieri, Joshua Levy, Shashank Singh, Tommaso Valletti and Luigi Zingales
In a new NBER working paper, John M. Barrios, Filippo Lancieri, Joshua Levy, Shashank Singh, Tommaso Valletti, and Luigi Zingales explore the impact of...
Antitrust and Competition

EU and US Antitrust Is Converging on Anti-Monopoly

Paul Friederiszick
There are many differences between European and American antitrust regulation, but recent enforcement against Big Tech shows that in the most important ways they are converging on an anti-monopoly philosophy, writes Paul Friederiszick.

How Media Concentration in the Age of Radio Prefigured Today’s Big Tech Debate

Richard R. John
In the 1930s, staffers at the newly established Federal Communications Commission devised a novel rationale for limiting network power in radio, telephony, and the press. While much has changed since the “age of radio,” the concerns they raised inform the present-day debate over the control that social media platforms exert over public discourse, writes Richard R. John.

China Is Using Its Market Power To Influence Foreign Policymaking

Audrye Wong
Audrye Wong writes that China is able to use its market power to pressure foreign companies and business leaders—perhaps most notably Tesla CEO Elon Musk—to lobby on its behalf. The practice raises questions about foreign influence in American and European policymaking and the disproportionate clout of business and oligarchic interests.

Has Antitrust Returned to the “Domain of Law”?

Allen Grunes
Allen Grunes comments on the core continuity in antitrust enforcement between the Biden and second Trump administrations. He argues that the continuity reflects, in Zephyr Teachout’s words, the “homecoming” of antitrust to the “domain of law.” The following is a revised version of remarks Grunes delivered at the Loyola Antitrust Colloquium in April.

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The publication of the Stigler Center at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business

ProMarket is dedicated to discussing how competition tends to be subverted by special interests. The posts represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty. For more information, please visit ProMarket Policy.