Political economy

In this second article on real estate in the current high-interest-rate environment, Joseph L. Pagliari Jr. explores banks’ exposure to commercial real estate, who might help fill the credit void as bank funding dries up, how the work-from-home phenomenon impacts commercial real estate prices, particularly the office sector, and what risks large urban centers face with emptied office buildings.

The return of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president of Brazil accompanies a renewed emphasis on sustainability. However, discrepancies in his rhetoric and the policy of his administration reveals a rift between the administration’s twin goals of sustainability and economic development, writes Stephanie Tondo

Politicians and governments in the United States and elsewhere have recently proposed or implemented wealth taxes to supplement revenue and reduce wealth inequality. In a new study, Samira Marti, Isabel Z. Martínez, and Florian Scheuer show how decreases in wealth taxes led to increases in wealth inequality in Switzerland, though they find that these decreases alone are not enough to explain the magnitude of widening disparities.

In new research, Cyril Hédoin and Alexandre Chirat use the rational-choice theory of economist Anthony Downs to explain how populism rationally arises to challenge established institutions of liberal democracy.

Corporate America makes sport of gaming the tax authorities, especially after decades of budget cuts to the IRS. What dominant corporations make by hiring expensive tax and lobby teams to distort the rules in their favor, smaller businesses, workers, and the general public are forced to cover with higher taxes and worsened services. Competition shouldn’t hinge on who has more pull over the tax rules and how they’re enforced. Decisions made over the next year to modernize the IRS present a historic opportunity to shape a less entrenched and more competitive economy, writes Niko Lusiani.

In new research, Francesco Barilari and Diego Zambiasi study how President Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush’s rhetoric on the War on Drugs while on the campaign trail, particularly targeting crack cocaine abuse, was enough to alter policing policy. Specifically, the authors find that increased rhetoric led to an increase in arrests of Black Americans. Their study contributes to a literature on the material impact that political rhetoric can have on policing and public policy.

This article originally appeared in in the Milken Institute Review. Thanks to reforms of the past half-century, most federal regulations with a significant economic impact...

With slightly more than one year until the United States presidential election, electoral campaigns are about to ramp up. These quadrennial elections, like so many others in democracies worldwide, will mobilize thousands of campaign workers who play an integral role in shaping candidates’ electoral performance. Yet, little is known about these workers and how the experience of working in a campaign shapes their professional lives. This column describes the findings from a new study on the career trajectories of campaign labor in Brazil, showing that connections forged on a campaign provide qualified workers with better employment and earnings opportunities. This article was originally published in VoxEU.

Pablo Balán explains that family ties provide firms with an edge in collective action that enables them to be politically active through campaign donations, to engage in financial rent-seeking by obtaining subsidized state credit, and to bypass regulation seeking to curtail the influence of business by substituting individual contributions for corporate contributions. Scholars and advocates can benefit from a deeper understanding of organizational constraints to programmatic reform.

In recent years, many Asian countries have received attention for their burgeoning economic development and innovation. Much of this development and innovation is driven by business groups, large and highly diversified networks of firms with common ownership (such as Samsung). Simon Commander and Saul Estrin argue in their new book that the role of business groups as catalysts for innovation is much more nuanced than the hype suggests.