Business & Industry

Economist William Lazonick reveals how the extraction model of American corporations has migrated from business to government.

The money to support well-paid American jobs exists—it’s just being hoarded at the top. Economist William Lazonick argues that this is not just unfair; it’s a failure of the whole economic system.

Sara Wynn-Williams, defying Facebook’s attempts to silence her, reveals the company’s toxic culture and global damage, exposing unethical practices and a profit-at-any-cost approach. The key question she leaves us with: How can this be changed?

New research reveals that rising insurance costs, reckless building, regulatory inaction, and big banks’ fossil fuel investments are driving a dangerous cycle that jeopardizes homeowners — and financial stability for everyone.

DeepSeek’s appearance is changing the AI landscape in more ways than we might think.

New book reveals how and why hedge-fund activists have been able to suck the life from big-name companies like J.C. Penney and Samsung with their short-sighted profit-grabs. Can their harmful activities be stopped?

Industrial organization economists have caused antitrust to cling to an antiquated and disproven economic theory.

Welfare economists and moral philosophers have shown that the Consumer Welfare Standard is biased in favor of wealthy individuals and corporations—the very powers the antitrust law is supposed to regulate.

The Utah Project on Antitrust and Consumer Protection hosted a conference on the future of consumer financial services law on October 11, 2024, which was supported by an INET grant.

Earlier investments make large-scale emission reductions easier to do over time because their unit costs drop

As artificial intelligence reshapes our economy, policymakers must act swiftly to prevent a winner-take-all scenario in the rapidly evolving market for AI foundation models.

The decisions we make now about the governance of AI will have profound implications for the future of our economy and society.

Medicare Needs a Perspective on “Collective and Cumulative Learning” in Inflation Reduction Act Negotiations

The financialization of U.S. firms making critical products endangers both American global leadership and, in Tesla’s case, climate change progress.

From the perspective of innovative enterprise, we ask how Musk might abuse his power of strategic control—and what that would mean for corporate governance reform.

As the “Technoking” of Tesla strategizes to maintain his control over the company’s decision-making, anyone concerned with the role that Tesla will play in the evolving EV transition should be asking how CEO Musk might use, or abuse, his powerful position.

By 1812 the U.S. already had more business corporations than any other country and possibly more than all other countries combined.

By 1812 the U.S. already had more business corporations than any other country, and possibly more than all other countries put together, securing its role as the world’s first “corporation nation.”

The IRA has the potential to rectify the imbalance between public benefit and private incentives

Patrick Gelsinger stepped down as INTEL’s CEO on December 1. We published an analysis last August that provides context for why this is significant for the company and the US economy.

Cybersecurity expert Muayyad Al-Chalabi assesses CrowdStrike’s update failure and its broader implications for cybersecurity in a discussion with Lynn Parramore.

Journalist Peter Goodman delves into the persistent problems with supply chains and how to fix them his new book, “How the World Ran Out of Everything,” in conversation with the Institute for New Economic Thinking

The $48 Billion Stock-Option Package and its Implications for the EV Transition

An ensemble of mechanisms enables cloud hegemons (Microsoft, Google, Amazon) to plan the whole AI knowledge and innovation network by weaponizing interdependence in networks.

Who owns knowledge?

The American state has lost the capacity for concentrated and decisive effort at the forefront of technology and the associated science.

Reindustrialization vs Financialization

Post-Chicago Economists vs. New Brandeisians on the New Merger Guidelines

What is GM CEO Mary Barra’s take-home pay? (It’s more than you are being told)

The tech giant is in the hot seat, but it’s going to be a “big fight,” warns antitrust expert Mark Glick.

On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers, a giant investment bank with a storied history, filed for bankruptcy. The shock was profound; world markets melted down.

New technologies are not the problem. It’s a system distorted by a flawed ideology.

ProMarket’s new “Addendum to Retraction,” written it appears in response to our recent INET post, doubles down on its critique of our piece which showed that it is feasible for increased output to lead to reduced welfare. The ProMarket addendum is notable for its economic errors.*

Economists had to distort economic theory to fashion their merger “efficiency” arguments

By permitting business definitions of “efficiency” to leak over into the antitrust lexicon, antitrust scholars have done a great disservice

Stock buybacks as a mode of predatory value extraction

ProMarket and the Consumer Welfare Standard An output increase is not sufficient to increase welfare. Allocation—how goods are distributed—matters.

Using computational linguistics to estimate firm-level cyber risk exposure based on quarterly earnings conference calls.

Does cyber risk exposure, as opposed to actual incidents, affect firm outcomes?

In his new book, “Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan To Pillage America,” Brendan Ballou, a federal prosecutor who served as Special Counsel for Private Equity in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, outlines the dangers of a trillion-dollar industry that hardly anyone understands. He explains how Americans can fight their harmful practices.

Cisco’s turn from innovation to financialization and what it means for the competitive position of the US information-and-communication-technology industry

The advent of military Keynesianism is a warning against complacency about the moral superiority of the West in defending Ukrainian democracy.

How Showering Money on Both Parties Paralyzed Regulators

Despite the accumulation of serious and unsolvable problems, the Consumer Welfare Standard survives and continues to be taught to students for reasons unrelated to theoretical consistency and empirical confirmation.

The Consumer Welfare Standard is severely limited or defective, preventing it from being an appropriate standard for modern antitrust.

Evidence sharply contradicts PhRMA’s contention that its member companies need unregulated drug prices to generate profits that they then reinvest in drug innovation.

Economist Cristina Caffarra, a leader in competition and antitrust, warns that ever-expanding tech giants raise concerns about the extent of their power.

Thirty Years of Indian Economic Reforms: Assessing the Growth and Development of Kerala

Financial Times columnist and author Rana Foroohar talks about her new book Homecoming: The Path to Prosperity in a Post-Global World

Thirty Years of Indian Economic Reforms: Assessing the Growth and Development of Kerala

How big tech barons crush innovation—and how to fight back

Corporate responsibility needs to evolve if businesses are going to rebuild trust and provide real value for society.

President Biden’s first SOTU Address was a missed opportunity to say what he knows to be true: Stock buybacks manipulate the market and leave most Americans worse off

Former health insurance executive turned whistleblower and investigative journalist Wendell Potter discusses the many ways in which the private health insurance system of the US is not serving anyone well except the insurance companies’ owners

US regulators can step in to ensure drug pricing both supports patient access and drug development

US regulators can step in to ensure drug pricing both supports patient access and drug development

The pandemic and electrification are shaking the foundations of the auto industry

The pandemic and electrification are shaking the foundations of the auto industry

Between a rock and a hard place

Between a rock and a hard place

Famed short-seller is even more concerned with political fallout from Evergrande than economic/financial woes.

To strengthen the American semiconductor industry, Congress should condition additional funds on suspending stock buybacks

To strengthen the American semiconductor industry, Congress should condition additional funds on suspending stock buybacks

In Europe, imbalances in the structure of the automotive and a lack of industrial policies risk creating a deadly cocktail for millions of European workers just as the auto sector is undergoing decisive changes.

In Europe, imbalances in the structure of the automotive and a lack of industrial policies risk creating a deadly cocktail for millions of European workers just as the auto sector is undergoing decisive changes.

Stock buybacks come at the cost of technological innovation

Large-sale debt relief for indebted households could be a game changer.

Hedge fund managers are pushing American firms to play Wall Street games instead of investing in technologies of the future. China doesn’t have that problem.

Does the COVID recession still have the potential to turn into a broader financial meltdown?

What are the choices we must make to ensure technology empowers, augments, rewards, and respects the majority, not the few, given its increasing defining role in future economies and societies?

How electric and self-driving cars could change the industry

How electric and self-driving cars could change the industry

What is the current situation in credit markets? Will an overhang of debt on corporate balance sheets slow down the recovery from the COVID recession and be a drag on investment going forward? Does the COVID recession still have the potential to turn into a broader financial meltdown?

Dans le cadre de cet entretien, Mr. Mossadeck Bally, C.E.O, Azalai Hotels Group et membre du GRAIN (Groupe de Réflexion, d’Actions et d’Initiatives Novatrices) revient sur les impacts économiques de la pandémie du COVID-19 sur son groupe hôtelier, le rôle du secteur privé malien dans le plan de relance économique, l’emploi des jeunes et les solutions qui doivent être apportées à la crise politique au Mali.

In this interview, Mr. Mossadeck Bally, a Malian businessman and CEO of Azalai Hotels Group and member of GRAIN (Group of Reflection, Actions and Innovative Initiatives) discusses the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on his hotel group, the role of the Malian private sector in the economic recovery plan, youth employment and the solutions that must be provided to the political crisis in Mali.

Human societies have always coevolved with technology, but how can we think of technology? Is it an external force outside our control, or do we have a say in its direction, development and deployment?

An INET organized panel under the auspices of the 2020 Trento Economic Festival

Consolidation in the dairy industry has created separate, inflexible supply chains for consumers and commercial markets. When COVID killed commercial demand, perfectly good milk and cheese was wasted.

Consolidation in the dairy industry has created separate, inflexible supply chains for consumers and commercial markets. When COVID killed commercial demand, perfectly good milk and cheese was wasted.

The success of projects for pandemic preparedness and response depends on the strength of government-business collaborations.

Since the 1980s, the enemy of equal employment opportunity through upward socioeconomic mobility has been the pervasive and entrenched corporate-governance ideology and practice of maximizing shareholder value.

In this introduction to our project, “Fifty Years After: Black Employment in the United States Under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,” we outline the socioeconomic forces behind the promising rise and disastrous fall of an African American blue-collar middle class.

This paper considers the relationship between profits realized from higher insulin list prices, pharmaceutical innovation, and the financial structures of the three dominant insulin manufacturing companies, which set list prices.

The scale of firm exposure to the coronavirus is unprecedented by earlier outbreaks, spans all major economies and is pervasive across all industries

As Covid-19 spreads globally in the first quarter of 2020, this paper finds that firms’ primary concerns relate to the collapse of demand, increased uncertainty, and disruption in supply chains

William Lazonick emphasizes that keeping workers productively employed is key to economic recovery from Covid-19 as well as a healthy economic future

It’s time for business executives, employees, and taxpayers to come together to help get us out of the pandemic and create conditions for a sustainable and equitable future

New research points to critical role of public funding in drug discoveries and development for the last decade

Prof. Oliver Hart will deliver the inaugural talk on Corporate Purpose

Brexit uncertainty has already taken an economic toll

Using tools from computational linguistics, we construct new measures of the impact of Brexit on listed firms in the United States and around the world

Stock buybacks are giveaways for greedy investors at the expense of everyone else.

Pharmaceutical drugs are often a matter of life or death. It should be a prime objective of government policy to rid the industry of financialization.

To make start-ups work for everyone, we need to put power back in the hands of workers.

Big Tech companies are swallowing up nascent competitors. Why aren’t regulators paying attention?

How antitrust law is ill-equipped to address tech mergers

The Chicago School has long used bankrupt assumptions to strangle antitrust policy

The Chicago School has long used bankrupt assumptions to strangle antitrust policy.

The idea that businesses are run to maximize profits for shareholders is just plain wrong, says William Lazonick