Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State

#IndustrialPolicy was once so out of fashion that it was jokingly called “the policy that shall not be named.” Now it’s back in a big way. On issues ranging from #cleanenergy to #semiconductors to #COVID19, governments are trying to improve the performance of key business sectors. Can they manage to do so without subverting competition and subsidizing special interests?? Check out our first-ever print edition of ProMarket, also available as a free #ebook. https://lnkd.in/g_AEQvrp Contributors include: Brad DeLong, Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley Nathaniel Lane, Associate Professor at the University of Oxford and fellow at the Roosevelt Institute Réka Juhász, Assistant Professor of Economics at Vancouver School of Economics at UBC Michael Munger, Professor of Political Science at Duke University Gary Hufbauer and Megan Hogan at the Peterson Institute for International Economics Chiara Criscuolo, Head of Productivity Innovation and Entrepreneurship at OECD - OCDE Guy Lalanne, Senior Economist also at the OECD Lenore Palladino, Economist and Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and also a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute John Van Reenen, Professor at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy Mark Muro, Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution Nagesh Kumar, Director, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development and non-resident Senior Fellow at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center Walter Frick, our Contributing Editor

NEW on ProMarket: Stigler Center Assistant Director of Programs Matt Lucky (The University of Chicago Booth School of Business) traces the history of ideas about population growth and its relation to welfare from Malthusian concerns of a population bomb to contemporary studies correlating declining birth rates in developed countries with increased investments in human capital and GDP per capita. Scholars now debate what it means for a society to have populations that do not simply stop growing, but rapidly shrink. https://lnkd.in/eZkYwsvT ?? This article is being published in coordination with the release of today’s #Capitalisnt episode with Sir Niall Ferguson. Check out his discussion with hosts Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales about why he worries about the social and economic consequences of a shrinking population. ??? Listen: https://lnkd.in/exVzYzQN

NEW on ProMarket: Tim Brennan (University of Maryland Baltimore County) finds the new shift in #antitrust thought and enforcement connected to the #NeoBrandeisian movement to be flawed for the most part. However, he writes that a reinvigorated focus on tacit collusion, which some have blamed for the rise of prices for groceries and apartment rents, may deserve consideration and further study. Read: https://lnkd.in/eQeE5zsf #AntitrustParadigmShiftSymposium: https://lnkd.in/eURnGMqq

NEW on #Capitalisnt: Sir Niall Ferguson (Hoover Institution, Stanford University) joins Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales (The University of Chicago Booth School of Business) to discuss why the global population is collapsing and what it means for the future of civilization. Listen: https://lnkd.in/exVzYzQN

In a new report from the Knight-Georgetown Institute, Alissa Cooper, Jasper van den Boom, and Zander A. examine how to make remedies most effective in the Google Search #antitrust case. They argue that restoring competition in online search requires a comprehensive package of remedies that takes into account the multiple levers by which Google Search built, maintains, and could rebuild its monopoly. https://lnkd.in/e-KW6cVr

The Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business is now accepting submissions of short academic articles (up to 2,000 words) exploring how economic concentration influences the marketplace of ideas. Authors of selected pieces will have their work published on ProMarket.org and will be invited to present their ideas at the Stigler Center’s 2025 Antitrust and Competition Conference, happening in Chicago on April 10-11, 2025. #StiglerAntitrust25 We welcome submissions from scholars across all disciplines, both in the U.S. and abroad. Articles based on previously published longer works are also encouraged. Please submit your contributions by?January 5th, 2025 (11:59pm Chicago time)?here: https://lnkd.in/eBrxZ8eR https://lnkd.in/eSBpREYj #CallforPapers

NEW on ProMarket: Eleanor Fox (New York University School of Law) writes that there is a paradigm shift in United States #antitrust, but it?is not to Neo-Brandeisian social policy. Rather, it is a rejection of neoliberal principles that have prevented effective antitrust regulation for decades. The shift has the support of a broad segment of society, from centrists to progressives, Neo-Brandeisians, and the new “#Khanservatives.” Read: https://lnkd.in/ebuUvd5C #AntitrustParadigmShiftSymposium: https://lnkd.in/eURnGMqq

#StiglerResearch Working Paper Series No. 345: Stigler Center Fellow Filippo Lancieri (Georgetown University Law Center) and Tommaso Valletti (Imperial College London) analyze the shortcomings of the current merger review system and defend stronger rebuttable structural presumptions as an important step forward. ? Forthcoming: Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Vol. 40 No. 4: New Directions in Competition Policy (Winter 2024) ?Read the summary on ProMarket.org: https://lnkd.in/ed_d7RA7 ?Read more: https://lnkd.in/gWzsGqVy

NEW on ProMarket: John Mayo (Georgetown University McDonough School of Business) reviews whether or not the articulated principles and priorities of the Neo-Brandeisian movement in antitrust scholarship and enforcement represent a “paradigm shift,” per the philosophy of Thomas Kuhn. Mayo finds that the Neo-Brandeisian discourse is best understood as situated within the continuum of the current antitrust paradigm, and that many of its efforts to substantiate its distinctive ideas have failed to properly ground them in empiricism or repudiate existing studies. Read: https://lnkd.in/eHfqwYCn ?? This article is part of a symposium studying the “paradigm shift” in antitrust scholarship and policy. Inspired by philosopher Thomas Kuhn’s work on progress in science, this symposium asks if and how the tenures of Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, and scholarship associated with the antimonopoly or Neo-Brandeisian movement has changed how we understand the priorities of antitrust enforcement, evidence of anticompetitive harm, and the study and enforcement of antitrust more broadly. #AntitrustParadigmShiftSymposium

We are excited to share that "Refuting the Myths Defending the JetBlue-Spirit Merger" by William J McGee (American Economic Liberties Project) in ProMarket has won at this year's Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition by the SATW Foundation. ?? Congratulations! Read: https://lnkd.in/efQX26B5 SATW Foundation Announces 2024 Recipients of the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards https://lnkd.in/e6tg6VmZ