In a wide-ranging interview with ProMarket, media scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan explains why Facebook has become “too big too manage” and why he believes the only solution to its bigness is a global political movement aimed at breaking it up.
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (July 27–August 4)
Apple hits the coveted $1 trillion mark—thanks to share buybacks; Senator Mark Warner’s proposals to regulate social media platforms make waves; Google is reportedly planning to launch a censored version of its search engine in China; and what’s behind the public battle between President Trump and the Koch brothers for control of the GOP?
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (July 7–14)
Brett Kavanaugh is expected to bring his pro-business bent to the Supreme Court; the DOJ is appealing the AT&T-Time Warner merger approval; Britain fines Facebook and the EU is expected to fine Google; and who really benefits from the GOP’s tax cuts?
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Does Ownership of Financial Assets Lead Voters to Support Republicans?
Does owning financial assets lead voters to support Republicans? New research on the liberty bonds of World War I suggests the story may be more complex.
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A Former Central Banker Tells Other Central Bankers: “Stay Away From Davos”
In an interview with ProMarket, former Bank of England deputy governor Sir Paul Tucker explains why the “unelected power” of central bankers threatens our system of government.
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (June 30–July 7)
Scott Pruitt resigns from the EPA; a new report finds that digital platforms are not fully complying with the EU’s new privacy rules; Google, meanwhile, has a new privacy scandal; a month after its acquisition of Time Warner was approved, AT&T is already raising prices for its streaming TV customers; and former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s new career draws criticism.
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The Foundation of Corporate Personhood: A Look at the Charles River Bridge Case of 1837
Some 130 years before Friedman could begin arguing that a corporation’s sole responsibility was to make a profit for its shareholders, Boston’s Charles River Bridge Company had to convince the Supreme Court that corporations were private entities whose interests could diverge from the public interest. While it lost that case, the partial success of the Charles River Bridge Company’s reasoning with the court laid the foundations for corporate personhood as it exists today.
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (June 16–23)
AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner continues to make waves; a New York federal judge says the entire Consumer of Financial Protection Bureau needs to be eliminated; the Koch Brothers are enlisting sophisticated data tool to fight against public transit; and which private contractors stand to benefit from the administration’s immigration policies?
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (June 8–16)
The AT&T-Time Warner merger is approved, further fueling the media merger frenzy and providing the Second Gilded Age with “another layer of gold”; net neutrality is officially dead, and media ownership rules are once again on the table; and should every American have his own account with the Federal Reserve?
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Does Direct Democracy Reduce Regulatory Capture?
Does direct democracy make regulatory capture harder for industry? Samantha Eyler-Driscoll looks at a new Stigler Center working paper that examines state-level referenda and initiatives from 1904 to 2017; it finds that economic interests are largely on the defensive when these types of popular measures go on the ballot.
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Why Are So Many Executives Running for Office These Days?
New research documents a sharp increase in the number of corporate executives in elected federal office between 1980 and 2014. But why do they run? And what consequences does it have for their firms and for aggregate policy?
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (May 26–June 2)
Google gives up Project Maven following “terrible” backlash; angry Facebook shareholders demand an end to Mark Zuckerberg’s “dictatorship”; American startups are in a 13-year slump; and Italy has a new government.
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