Research

In a new paper, Jonathan Masur and Eric Posner argue that although cost-benefit analysis and originalism seem to belong to different legal worlds, they share a common political history of support from many of the same business interests. In recent years, both have gained wide acceptance across the political spectrum. But the ground may be shifting beneath them, and they now face uncertain futures.

In a new report from the Knight-Georgetown Institute, Alissa Cooper, Jasper van den Boom, and Zander Arnao examine how to make remedies most effective in the Google Search antitrust case. They argue that restoring competition in online search requires a comprehensive package of remedies that takes into account the multiple levers by which Google Search built, maintains, and could rebuild its monopoly.

A new paper by Cortelyou C. Kenney explores new developments in game theory to question some of the fundamental assumptions of classical law and economics scholarship, especially the scholarship of John Nash. She suggests that a more sophisticated understanding of cooperation can create fairer and more just institutions that maximize social welfare instead of individual efficiency. 

In new research, Filippo Lancieri and Tommaso Valletti analyze the shortcomings of the current merger review system and defend stronger rebuttable structural presumptions as an important step forward.

Todd A. Gormley, Manish Jha and Meng Wang examine the impact of state-level political dynamics on the support institutional investors provide to socially responsible investing (SRI) proposals. The findings reveal that investors are less likely to support SRI initiatives at firms headquartered in Republican-led states, suggesting that regional political pressures are shaping corporate social responsibility trends.

Democracy sees higher GDP due to greater civil liberties, economic reform, increased investment and government capacity, and reduced social conflict. This post originally appeared...

In a survey of nearly 400 European firms that export abroad, Elena Argentesi, Livia De Simone, Stephan Paetz, Vincenzo Scrutinio find that most firms believe that competition forces them to produce cheaper and higher quality products and services, allowing them to be more competitive in foreign markets.

Eric Posner examines how businesses exploit cultural expectations to frame certain activities as non-work, creating a form of monopsony power that allows them to extract labor without compensation in areas ranging from college athletics to digital content creation. He argues that properly classifying these "invisible" forms of work as compensable labor would benefit society, challenging anti-commodification concerns and highlighting the law's struggle to define work in these blurred contexts.

Bruno Pellegrino introduces a novel model developed with Enrico Spolaore and Romain Wacziarg that explains the lack of international investment in some countries despite their promise of higher returns. The study finds that removing certain barriers to international capital flows could boost global GDP by 7% and significantly reduce cross-country inequality.

Should we pay regulators according to their performance? In a new paper, Jason Chen, Jakub Hajda, and Joseph Kalmenovitz show that a pay-for-performance system has a surprising effect: it increases regulatory effort but also motivates regulators, especially the productive ones, to quit and join the private sector.