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Bethany McLean’s Weekend Reading List: Coronavirus, the Sugar Conspiracy, and Blackstone

Corruption, lobbying, corporate malfeasance, and frauds: a weekly unconventional selection of must-read articles by investigative journalist Bethany McLean.      Yes, yes, I'm obsessed with the rise...

How Regulators and PwC Fooled Reporters—Again

Is the PCAOB really investigating PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for its role in the Mattel auditing mess? I may be wrong, but I seriously doubt it....

The Most Persistent of All Zombie Ideas: That Taxing the Wealthy Is Destructive to the Economy

Economics can’t tell you what values to have. It can, however, shed light on what to expect from policy that reflects any particular set...

What Is the Meaning of Wealth?

Who's richer, a person who enjoys the comfort of modern services and technologies, or the ancient kings of a millennia ago? Comparing wealth over...

With the Court Approval of the T-Mobile/Sprint Merger, the Dominant Doctrine in Antitrust Has Jumped the Shark

New York Judge Victor Marrero allowed two major mobile companies to merge in an already concentrated telecom industry, ensuring that prices will rise and...

Google’s and Facebook’s Grip on Digital Advertising Markets

Since July 2019, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority has been conducting an extensive investigation of the digital advertising market. In its preliminary report on...

Why There Is No “Crisis of Capitalism”

Western dissatisfaction with globalization is wrongly diagnosed as dissatisfaction with capitalism, when in fact it is the product of the uneven distribution of the...

A New Capitalisn't Episode: The Controversial Tax Policies Of Emmanuel Saez

In a new episode of their podcast Capitalisn't, Luigi Zingales and Kate Waldock interview UC Berkeley professor Emmanuel Saez on tax policy, the wealth...

How Do Members of Congress React to the Potential of Lucrative Private Sector Employment?

Many fear that the potential for well-paid post-elective jobs can make legislators give rewards to their future employers. A new study finds that career...

Why the US Government Buys Overpriced Services From McKinsey

The Industrial Funding Fee pays $3 million a year for a 23-year old McKinsey employee instead of hiring an experienced person directly to do...

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