Economists are still in the dark about the role of gender. For economics to be credible, we have to recognize that our knowledge is incomplete and learn from the diversity of humanity and experiences in our own profession.
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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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A Fair Amount of Freedom for Everyone: Aaron Director Did Have Ideals
David Henderson of the Hoover Institution defends the legacy of Aaron Director, the most enigmatic among the founders of the so-called “Chicago School.” Director, argues Henderson, was not the nihilist Matt Stoller accused him of being.
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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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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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Thomas Piketty’s New Book Brings Political Economy Back to Its Sources
In the same way that Capital in the Twenty-First Century transformed the way economists look at inequality, Piketty’s new book Capital and Ideology will transform the way political scientists look at their own field.
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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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Protecting the Independence and Integrity of Research: Introducing the Academic Capture Warning System
Inappropriate financial donor influence at institutions of higher education appears to be on the rise and risks eroding public trust in academic research. In order to defend academic freedom and institutional independence, we have decided to create a new database to document clear violations of well-accepted norms involving financial donations.
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“Economics Now Points Away From the Laissez-Faire Approach”
Columbia professor Suresh Naidu on Economics for Inclusive Prosperity, the new initiative he launched with Dani Rodrik and Gabriel Zucman, and why he believes economics shouldn’t be conflated with neoliberalism.
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (December 9-16)
Congress misses an opportunity to scrutinize Google; the IRS is on life support; Johnson & Johnson reportedly knew for decades that its baby powder contained asbestos; the British Labour Party considers a break-up of the Big Four accounting firms; and will Obamacare once again be upheld by the Supreme Court?
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“US Regulators Have Essentially Become Do-Nothing Institutions”
In an interview with ProMarket, Jonathan Tepper talks about the rise of America’s oligopoly problem, why he believes antimonopoly is not a left-right issue, and how a passionate fan of free markets came to write a book titled “The Myth of Capitalism.”
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Mercenary Science: How Corporate Partnerships Can Corrupt Public Universities
UC Berkeley’s disastrous partnerships with Novartis and BP are cautionary examples of all that could go wrong when public universities allow private interests to lease vast swaths of their campus for years at a time.
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