They came for your department stores, your newspapers, your hospitals. Now—hold onto your sesame seed bun—they’re coming for your burger. The drive for fatter profits means higher prices, lower quality, tougher conditions for workers, and sometimes the blowup of the business itself.
Article | Health
A sweeping Senate health reform blueprint takes aim at insurers, PBMs, and administrative abuses while leaving hospital prices largely untouched. Concentrated hospital systems remain a major source of rising costs, weakened bargaining power, and pressure on household budgets.
By David Introcaso and Adam Cunningham
Article | Government & Politics
In the 2026 midterms, congressional leaders of both parties are drawing huge shares of money from million-dollar donors, while small donors barely register. New data trace the rise of mega-donor and dark-money financing and what it means for party politics.
Article | Economics Profession, Education, Macroeconomics
It is with deepest sadness and regret that we learned of the passing of Dr. Perry Mehrling. Dr. Mehrling played a vital role in INET and its Young Scholar Initiative (YSI) for many years. We were looking forward with hopeful anticipation to working with him far into the future. Alas, it was not to be. Over the next few months, INET and YSI will be organizing a series of tributes to Dr. Mehrling. In the meantime, we gratefully reprint with permission the warm and generous appreciation of our long time colleague just published by our friends at the History of Economics Society. INET and YSI join with the EHS in expressing our deepest condolences to Dr. Mehrling’s wife and extended family.
Article | Technology & Innovation
NVIDIA’s $150 billion buyback plan raises the question of who benefits when corporate cash is spent propping up share prices. Behind the AI boom lies a system that rewards executives and investors while starving productive investment and weakening resilience.
By William Lazonick and Matt Hopkins
Article | Education, History, Race
Libertarians and the Emergence of the “Virginia Plan” of Private Segregation Academies
Article | Health, Technology & Innovation
Working Paper | Health
From Captive Bargaining to Outside Options: Re-Anchoring Price Formation in US Hospitals
By David Introcaso and Adam Cunningham
Article | Education, Government & Politics, Inequality & Distribution, Technology & Innovation
Everyone’s Asking the Wrong Questions About AI and Education
Article | Macroeconomics
Sixty years of data show inflation moving in step across the world. Economic theory still treats it as a national affair.
By Carlo D'Ippoliti, Daniele Tori, and Lucio Gobbi
Article | Business & Industry, Technology & Innovation
By Matt Hopkins and William Lazonick
Article | Philosophy & Ethics, Technology & Innovation
Working Paper | Health
Hospital price transparency has not delivered lower costs because buyers still lack meaningful alternatives. A new proposal would restore bargaining power by pairing independently set reference prices with a ban on restrictive hospital contracts that prevent health plans from steering patients elsewhere.
By David Introcaso and Adam Cunningham
Working Paper | Macroeconomics
Inflation is usually treated as a national problem, to be managed through domestic monetary and fiscal policy. But its striking synchronization across countries suggests another story, one where it is shaped by global production, capital mobility, currency hierarchies, and the international distribution of economic power.
By Carlo D'Ippoliti, Lucio Gobbi, and Daniele Tori
Working Paper | Business & Industry, Technology & Innovation
America helped pioneer the electric-vehicle revolution, yet today no major EV battery maker is based in the United States. Asia’s dominance reveals how sustained investment, organizational capabilities, and America’s embrace of shareholder value reshaped the global race for a critical technology.
By Matt Hopkins and William Lazonick
Working Paper | Government & Politics, Inequality & Distribution, Labor, Technology & Innovation
The collapse of America’s political center isn’t a mystery. What looks like a sudden political crisis is really the result of an economy that’s been quietly abandoning ordinary workers for decades.
By Thomas Ferguson, Servaas Storm, and Jie Chen
Working Paper | Government & Politics, Health
Senate Finance Committee Democrats have invited outside evidence and proposals for their next health-care agenda. Their critique of insurers has force, but the remedies leave most of the system untouched, risking further disappointment unless reform reaches hospitals and entire conglomerates.
By Phillip Alvelda and Thomas Ferguson
Working Paper | History, Philosophy & Ethics
As America marks 250 years of independence, Adam Smith is again being pressed into service as a founding myth. A deeper reading of The Wealth of Nations reveals a far richer thinker than today’s easy invocations of markets and liberty suggest.
Dec 08, 2025
Webinars and Events
LEPC VII will bring together leading thinkers, practitioners, and policymakers to analyze the drivers behind this sub national success, and to chart actionable pathways for the future. Each session outlined explores a foundational dimension of India’s growth story, with attention to both policy diagnosis and on-the-ground innovation.
Dec 02, 2025
Webinars and Events
International Conference on Digitalisation, Market and Society is a cross-disciplinary plenary on how digital transformation is altering work, gender norms, and social institutions—and how society can respond inclusively.
Jul 24, 2025
Webinars and Events
The focus of this year’s monsoon school is on pluralistic approaches to research on inequality, bringing together perspectives from varied streams of economic thought. It will provide an interactive platform for advanced-level PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and scholars affiliated with Indian research institutes to engage with diverse concepts, debates, and methodologies related to inequality.
Jul 14, 2025
Webinars and Events
The urgency of the climate crisis cannot be overstated, particularly given its disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities in the Global South.
May 31, 2025
Webinars and Events
Four months of the Trump presidency have already changed the world as we knew it. How did we get here? What consequences have the tariffs had and will have? How will U.S.-European trade relations evolve? What about the confrontation with China?
Apr 10, 2025
Webinars and Events
with THOMAS FERGUSON, RESEARCH DIRECTOR, INET
Jul 15, 2025
Jul 14, 2025
Jul 07, 2025
YSI projects are collaboratively organized by members of the community to explore topics in new economic thinking. Projects may be held virtually (discussions, webinars, reading groups) or in person (workshops, pre-conferences). Learn more about YSI here
