SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson dissented from his SEC colleagues’ proposal on how to reform proxy advisors regulation. New rules, he argues, would introduce a tax on firms who recommend that shareholders vote in a way that executives don’t like. Jackson’s analysis also shows that the proposed changes will remove key CEO accountability measures from the ballot.
Read more
In a new episode of their podcast Capitalisn’t, Kate Waldock and Luigi Zingales discuss one of the most hated industries of America: private equity. Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has a plan to curb its abuses, but can it work?
Read more
In an excerpt from his new book “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” New York Times reporter Mike Isaac reveals the details of Uber’s fight against Portland authorities to enter the local market. Isaac will present his book at a Stigler Center and Harry L. Davis Center event on November 18.
Read more
For companies that sell on Amazon’s platform, “winning the Buy Box”—the area on the right-hand side of the page that says “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now”—is everything. While Amazon says it’s a neutral arbiter, there is ample evidence that the company has rigged its algorithm to deliver outcomes that further its own interests at the expense of sellers and consumers.
Read more
The White House asked the Italian government for support in its “investigation on the investigators” to prove the existence of a Democratic plot against Donald Trump in 2016. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte secretly cooperated and then received a crucial public endorsement from Trump in the midst of a political crisis. The next episode of the impeachment story will be staged not in Kyiv, but in Rome.
Read more
Every year, Americans spend 9.78 billion hours filling out federal paperwork. These administrative burdens can make it difficult or impossible for people to vote or to speak freely.
Read more
In attempting to address legitimate privacy concerns, Google could be trying to monopolize surveillance.
Read more
The issues around technology, data, and privacy are complicated, but solving them is less tricky that many companies would have Congress believe.
Read more
The signals of unrest in Chile mounted for years amid corruption scandals, rising inequality, and new monopolies. The fare increase on public transport that sparked the protests was only the final straw.
Read more
Why did Washington respond to the 2008 financial crisis by pushing even more wealth and power into the hands of the same people that caused it? The answer is partly rooted in the legacy of the angry young Democrats who entered Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal and unwittingly loosened the chains of concentrated corporate power.
Read more
In a letter submitted to the record by the US Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust currently investigating Big Tech, Luigi Zingales expounds on the Stigler Center’s policy recommendations on how to address the market power of the largest tech platforms.
Read more
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.
Read more