Anat Admati calls on economists and academics to engage with governance and political economy issues, scrutinize models before applying them to the real world, and enhance the positive impact of their work.
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Chile’s Fall From Grace Shows the Failures of Neoliberalism
For many years, Chile’s economic growth and transition to democracy have made it the poster boy for neoliberalism. The current wave of protests highlights the extreme inequality caused by 40 years of neoliberal policies.
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Esther Duflo: How to Find the Right Questions
In this piece, originally published in 2011 by the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, Esther Duflo, co-recipient of the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in economics, reflects on her academic career.
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Economics’ Lack of Interest in Gender Proves: the “Dismal Science” Really Is Dismal
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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Aaron Director and the Empirical Foundation for the Chicago Attitude on Antitrust
Empirical evidence, not just disembodied theory, was an important building block of Director’s view that competition could defeat concentration, writes Daniel Kuehn.
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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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The Cost of America’s Oligopoly Problem
An innovative new study finds substantial, increasing deadweight losses resulting from oligopolistic behavior and points to the important role that startup acquisitions—particularly by large tech firms—played in driving this trend.
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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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The Limits of Private Action: What the Past 40 Years Taught Us About the Perils of Unregulated Markets
The two big ideas that animated American public policy since the end of World War II, employer-sponsored social benefits and neoliberalism, are failures. We need better options.
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