The signals of unrest in Chile mounted for years amid corruption scandals, rising inequality, and new monopolies. The fare increase on public transport that sparked the protests was only the final straw.
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How the “Watergate Babies” Released the Beast of Monopoly Upon America
Why did Washington respond to the 2008 financial crisis by pushing even more wealth and power into the hands of the same people that caused it? The answer is partly rooted in the legacy of the angry young Democrats who entered Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal and unwittingly loosened the chains of concentrated corporate power.
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Uber and the Sherlock Holmes Principle: How Control of Data Can Lead to Biased Academic Research
How can we ensure that academic journals do not become an unintended instrument in the PR efforts of powerful firms? Luigi Zingales offers some solutions.
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How Powerful Ideas Can Shape Society: Aaron Director and the Triumph of Nihilism
The rise of giants like Amazon and Facebook proves the long-lasting influence of Director’s approach. His intellectual and political legacy is the transition of legitimacy from democratic institutions as the locus of governing power to private monopolies.
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Presenting: The Stigler Center’s Report on How to Rein in Big Tech
The Stigler Center presents its policy suggestions on how to address the political and economic issues raised by the market power of tech platforms like Google and Facebook. The result of a year-long, multidisciplinary research, the recommendations are aimed at promoting competition, protecting consumers, and defending democracies while maintaining the benefits of digital platforms.
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How to Lobby on E-Waste? A New Stigler Center Case Study on the Hewlett-Packard Dilemma
Brian K. Richter’s case study illustrates how firms can use lobbying strategies to complement socially responsible activities that are cost centers and turn them into a competitive advantage.
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Call for Papers: Academic Lobbying
Ahead of our fourth annual Theory of the Firm conference, we are soliciting papers dedicated to the topic of academic lobbying.
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How Robert Bork Fathered the New Gilded Age
Much like in the first Gilded Age, antitrust enforcers today are hitting labor, not capital. This is thanks to Robert Bork’s radical and influential reinterpretation of antitrust law. In helping successfully rewrite antitrust, Bork left a legacy of corporate supremacy and individual powerlessness.
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The Limits of Private Action: What the Past 40 Years Taught Us About the Perils of Unregulated Markets
The two big ideas that animated American public policy since the end of World War II, employer-sponsored social benefits and neoliberalism, are failures. We need better options.
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The Future of Capitalism and the Utopia That Never Was
In his review of Paul Collier’s recent book The Future of Capitalism, Branko Milanovic discusses ideology, social democracy, and the “ethical world.”
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Why American Voters Are Still Not Ready to Support Carbon Taxes
Economists and policy elites love carbon taxes, but voters dislike them. A new study suggests that ideology has a lot to do with it.
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How the Supreme Court Is Rebranding Corruption
In thirteen years of hostile decisions, the Roberts Supreme Court has done all it can to legalize corruption. With the Bridgegate case, it gets a chance to wreak even more havoc and possibly end the use of the term “corruption” as a useful legal concept.
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