Rent seeking

The Costs of Trump’s Import Tariffs Have Landed Entirely on US Citizens

US importers and consumers experienced $12.3 billion in added tax costs and another $6.9 billion from unrecoverable reductions in welfare arising from the 2018...

The Nation-State: The Common Root of Our Failure to Deal with High Global Inequality and Climate Change

Inequality and climate change are both global problems that cannot be solved by a single country. Yet we are stuck with the political limitations...

How Finance Affects Income Inequality

There is mounting evidence that income inequality and disparities in wealth have been rising in advanced economies in the recent decades. Using data on...

When the Interests of Monopolists and Authoritarians Coalesce

It is when the behemoth of monopoly enterprise consorts with the leviathan of the authoritarian state that both are likely to achieve permanence, writes...

Social Media Clickwraps and the “Manufacture of Consent”

A new study identifies a political economic interface design strategy that threatens privacy protections by maintaining “the biggest lie on the internet.” We check the...

The News Media’s Business Model of Extortion

The Jeff Bezos vs. The National Enquirer scandal highlights the role that extortion may play in the business model of some news outlets.  Jeff Bezos’s...

Rents and Inclusive Growth: A Decline in Rent Sharing Implies Growing Income Inequalities

A new study looks at the long-run evolution of rent sharing between companies and workers in the UK and finds that rent sharing...

How Market Power Worsens Income Inequality

Inequality in stock ownership has grown considerably over the past two decades and is far more pronounced than inequality in consumption or income. A...

What Comes After Trickle-Down Trade Liberalization?

The United States needs to rethink its trade policy. A new report offers a blueprint, consisting of ten major reforms. US trade policy is at...

Reducing Wealth Inequality Through Wealth Taxes Without Compromising Economic Growth

New research proposes two ways of using wealth taxes to reduce inequality and increase efficiency. Economic inequality has risen significantly within major economies around the...

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