Chicago School

The 2024 Marshall Forum held a panel on Chicago Economics, debating its focus on big questions, data-driven research, and the role of markets. Panelists discussed a move away from pure market efficiency and a growing focus on inequality within the field.

Henry Simons, one of the fathers of Chicago economics, advocated for libertarian policies promoting free markets as well as wealth redistribution through highly progressive income taxation, reflecting his belief that concentrations of private economic power were as threatening to liberty as centralized government power. Daniel Shaviro demonstrates that, for Simons and other early to mid-20th century libertarian thinkers, including Milton Friedman and George Stigler, policies promoting economic equality might be seen as complementary to, rather than conflicting with, support for free market capitalism and limited government intervention.

The following is an excerpt from Jennifer Burns' new book "Milton Friedman, The Last Conservative," out November 14.

Philosopher Michel Foucault is often associated with the political left. Austrian liberals, including Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek, are generally associated with libertarians or the political right. However, all shared a doubt regarding the government’s ability to use statistics and data to regulate populations and markets, writes Parv Tyagi.

In a new book, The Chile Project: The Story of the Chicago Boys and the Downfall of Neoliberalism, Sebastian Edwards details the history of neoliberalism in Chile over the past seventy years. The Chicago Boys—a group of Chilean economists trained at the University of Chicago through the U.S. State Department’s “Chile Project”—played a central role in neoliberalism’s ascent during General Augusto Pinochet’s rule. What follows is an excerpt from the book on University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman’s 1975 visit to Chile to meet with Pinochet and business leaders.

In their research, published in History of Economic Ideas, Thierry Kirat and Frédéric Marty stress the importance of the late 1930s in the making of antitrust. The moment was exceptional for its consensus within the economic discipline and the implementation of voluntarist public enforcement, particularly under Thurman Arnold according to the prescriptions of the Second Chicago School, institutionalists, and the preferences of the Neo-Brandeis movement.

Friedrich Hayek viewed the subject of rent-seeking not from the usual welfare economics perspective, but from a constitutional economics perspective. In a new paper,...

Matt Stoller argues there was a conspiracy. It was more of an association with a singular purpose. In April, Matt Stoller argued that a 1980...

A memo from George Stigler and Richard Posner to the Reagan administration was recently unearthed. To understand the meaning behind the memo, as well...

Alden Abbott, former general counsel of the FTC, argues that, contrary to claims made in a recent ProMarket article, American competition is vibrant and robust....