Crony Capitalism
A New Stigler Center Case Study Explores the Link Between Italy’s Morandi Bridge Disaster and Crony Capitalism
Two years ago, the Morandi bridge collapse claimed 43 lives. Based on financial statements, Italian government documents, and interviews with independent experts and corporate...
The Coronavirus Crisis Has Exposed Private Equity’s Unsustainable Business Model
Private equity portfolio companies are heavily indebted, and they aren’t generating enough cash to service debts. The steady increase in asset values since 2009...
Who Benefits When State Governments Award Incentives to Politically-Connected Companies?
A new study finds that a company is nearly four times more likely to receive an economic incentive in a state where the company...
How Economic Concentration and Crony Capitalism Led to the Chaos in Chile
The signals of unrest in Chile mounted for years amid corruption scandals, rising inequality, and new monopolies. The fare increase on public transport that...
Subsidies to Amazon Are Uneconomical, Un-American, and Unconstitutional
Corporate subsidies are a negative-sum game. They foster crony capitalism, hurt productivity growth and inflict great harm on product market competition.
As soon as Amazon announced...
What Glue Holds Communist Capitalism Together in China? Cronyism
With a few cronyist tweaks, China’s communist leaders made capitalism safe for Party rule. But will cronyism become China’s next booming export?
The Chinese economy...
Of Computers and Cronyism: What’s the Cause of Italy’s Productivity Problem?
The latest Stigler Center working paper from Bruno Pellegrino and Luigi Zingales argues that Italy’s sclerotic TFP growth over the past two decades has...
Bribery, Cooperation, and the Evolution of Prosocial Institutions
How the science of cooperation and cultural evolution will give us new tools in combating corruption.
There is nothing natural((Putting aside what it means for...
Eliot Spitzer: The U.S. Never Had the Will and the Ability to Hold the Most Powerful to Account
In a special interview with ProMarket, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer talks about financial regulation, regulatory capture, and antitrust. Part 1 of 2.
Clear rules and...
Populist Plutocrats as a Political Phenomenon
How can a rich man successfully pose as a representative of the poor and the disenfranchised and become the leader of a populist movement?...
