Crony Capitalism
How Biology Explains Back-Scratching Between Wall Street and Government
The revolving door of government and business explained in the lab.
The systemic financial risk-taking in the lead-up to the financial crisis was a product...
How Markets in Europe Opened Up as Guild Monopolies Declined in the Sixteenth Century
Markets don’t function well if they are ridden with frictions like lack of information or lack of trust. A new working paper finds that...
How Market Power Leads to Corporate Political Influence
Neoclassical economic theory assumes that firms have no power to influence the rules of the game. A new paper by Luigi Zingales argues: This is...
Spoiled Meat Scandal Reveals the Influence of Business and Media on Brazil's Politics
The recently-released secret taping of a conversation between Brazil’s president Michel Temer and one of the country's most prominent businessmen reveals the extent to which big business...
The Value of Access: How Closeness to the Obama White House Benefited Companies
Between January 2009 and December 2015, White House officials met with corporate CEOs 2,286 times. A new study, to be presented at the upcoming Stigler Center...
Uber, the Mayor’s Private Email, and the Underground Lobbying Complex
The recent revelations regarding the interactions between Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel and former Uber executive and Obama adviser David Plouffe suggest that the real action in...
“We Are Arrogant – We hold On to Our Old Beliefs on the Gains of Trade”: ProMarket Interviews Bernard Yeung, Part 3
The third and final part of ProMarket's interview with Bernard Yeung, Dean of the National University of Singapore’s business school and one of the...
“In a System with Dominance, There is Built-In Resistance to Change”: ProMarket Interviews Bernard Yeung, Part 2
In the second part of his interview with ProMarket, Bernard Yeung—one of the economists who laid the foundations of scientific research on economic power...
Donald Trump’s Economic Policies: Pro-Business, Not Pro-Market
Trump is eliminating lobbyists by putting them in charge of all departments.
After his election,((This post was originally published in Il Sole 24 Ore.)) it was...
Nobel Laureates: Eliminating Rent Seeking and Tougher Antitrust Enforcement Are Critical to Reducing Inequality
Angus Deaton: "A lot of the inequality in the U.S. comes from rent seeking. It comes from firms and industry seeking special protection or...
