The Equitable Economy

Corporations can sidestep prosecution by cooperating with the government and offering up employees to avoid their own criminal liability. Ellen S. Podgor discusses two prominent reasons why the current approach to corporate criminality is inefficient.

Member of the European Parliament Alexandra Geese writes that illiberal politicians and Big Tech social media platforms have abused the principle of freedom of speech to suppress ideas with which they do not agree and promote hate speech. She provides three recommendations for retaking speech from the social media platforms that constitute today’s public sphere.

In new research, Benjamin Wood, Sven Gallasch, Nicholas Shaxson, Katherine Sievert, and Gary Sacks write that competition underenforcement and a narrow regulatory focus on prices and output has allowed industries that produce harmful consumer products, such as tobacco or ultra-processed foods, to increase demand and, consequentially, harm to society. They argue that competition law must evolve to consider health impacts.

Anat R. Admati reviews Unjust Debts: How Our Bankruptcy System Makes America More Unequal (2024) by Melissa B. Jacoby.

In new research, Marcel Preuss, Germán Reyes, Jason Somerville, and Joy Wu find that MBA students’ attitudes toward inequality and fairness vary from those of the average American. As these students will one day form the business and political elite of the United States, the findings have implications for the future of inequality in the U.S.

In new research, Axel Gottfries and Gregor Jarosch develop a model to understand how wage-fixing cartels operate and show how to gauge the harm they cause to workers.

Jan Broulík writes that the interest and willingness of European competition authorities and courts to intervene in markets to protect labor has made critical strides over the last few months. However, it still has a ways to go to even catch up with its American counterpart.

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.

Why is nonprofit ownership gaining traction in the U.S., with companies like OpenAI and Patagonia mirroring long-standing models in Europe, such as Novo Nordisk and IKEA? In new research, Ofer Eldar and Mark Ørberg unpack the economic rationales behind nonprofit business ownership, challenge the idea that it’s all about purpose, and highlight the overlooked risks of nonprofit control.

Despite individual investors being strongly divided on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, corporate policies are largely determined by large institutional investors that adopt predominantly moderate ESG stances. In new research, Nicola Persico and Enrichetta Ravina explore this disconnect by examining the mechanisms driving the moderate ESG positions of major financial institutions and investigating potential impacts of allowing individual investors to select their own proxy voters.