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Economic History

The current debate in economics seems to lack a historical perspective. To try to address this deficiency, we decided to launch a Sunday column on ProMarket focusing on the historical dimension of economic ideas.

Economic History

Mechanics and Financiers: How Political Economy and Political Ideology Helped Make Detroit the Global Leader of the Automotive Industry

Stefan J. Link
The history of automotive mass production begins with a puzzle: Why did Detroit, of all places, pioneer the industry that would shape the twentieth...
Economic History

“Old Chicago” and Freiburg: Why Ordoliberalism Was No “German Oddity”

Stefan Kolev
Both the Chicago and Freiburg schools faced systemic fragility as the crucial property of societal orders. It was this fragility that served as the...
Antitrust and Competition

A New Antitrust Under Biden? Lessons From the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt

Richard Baker
The early history of the Sherman Antitrust Act offers relevant insights to contemporary debates on how to best enforce antitrust laws. In fact, the...
Antitrust and Competition

How and Why Baseball’s Legal Monopoly Came to Be

Emile Warot
Baseball’s antitrust exemption, currently the subject of fierce political backlash, has long been a historical curiosity. Why has a professional sports league enjoyed a...
Antitrust and Competition

American History Provides a Valuable Lesson on How Monopolists Use Exclusive Deals to Fortify Their Market Power

Daniel A. Hanley
Since the Civil War, dominant firms have widely and repeatedly used exclusive agreements to exert, expand, and fortify their market power. History shows that...
Antitrust and Competition

Freiburg and Chicago: How the Two Worlds of Neoliberalism Drifted Apart Over Market Power and Monopolies

Thomas Biebricher
Early neoliberals tended to view market power and monopolies as phenomena that somehow had to be reined in by an institutional framework in order...
Antitrust and Competition

Henry Simons’s Positive Program for Laissez-Faire

Mario Rizzo
The 1930s were a difficult time for classical liberals. In response to the Great Depression, the federal government undertook a massive expansion of its...
Economic History

Harold Demsetz and Israel Kirzner Understood That Competition Regulates Markets

Peter J. Boettke
Economists Harold Demsetz and Israel Kirzner challenged the prevailing orthodoxy in microeconomic analysis and public policy beginning with their respective work in the 1960s....
Economic History

How Protests Against the Jim Crow Credit Market Changed the Civil Rights Movement

Mehrsa Baradaran
Before the civil rights movement captured the nation’s attention, activists and community groups were protesting against exploitative credit and exclusionary lending practices rooted in...
Economic History

How a Wave of Corporate Takeovers Ushered In the Gospel of Shareholder Value

Jonathan Levy
In an excerpt from his new book, Ages of American Capitalism, economic historian Jonathan Levy explains how "financiers blew up the postwar industrial corporation...
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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.