Capitalisn't

As companies become increasingly big through mergers and acquisitions -- especially in technology, health care, and several other industries -- how should rules and regulations change with the times?

Freshly minted and hot off the press: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently released an updated set of draft "Merger Guidelines," which could reshape the landscape of corporate mergers and acquisitions both in the U.S. and globally. Esteemed Stanford professor and Chief Economist at the DOJ's Antitrust Division, Susan Athey, joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss these changes. Why did the DOJ and FTC make them? How will they impact the way companies approach mergers and acquisitions? And what do they mean for consumers, competition, labor, and the broader economy?

Show Notes:

• Visit our ongoing online symposium on the Merger Guidelines, with a wide range of perspectives and debates from leading experts on the topic
• Hear more from Susan Athey at our 2023 Antitrust and Competition Conference

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Is there a fundamental tension between democratic freedom, economic growth, and social equality?

Chilean economist and UCLA Professor Sebastian Edwards joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss his recent book, "The Chile Project: The Story of the Chicago Boys and the Downfall of Neoliberalism." The Chicago Boys were a group of free-market economists trained at the University of Chicago who shaped economic policy and reforms in Chile during General Augusto Pinochet's rule. In the book, Edwards (who also received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1981) outlines the complexities of implementing market-oriented policies in a society undergoing rapid change. With him, Bethany and Luigi discuss: Could the Chilean experience offer lessons for other nations grappling with similar policy choices?

We’d like to thank our former Journalist in Residence, Rodrigo Cardenas (Editor at Chilean publication La Tercera), for his continued engagement with the Stigler Center. Upon our request, Rodrigo kindly submitted a couple of insightful questions for consideration in this interview.

Show Notes:

• Read an excerpt from Edwards' book on ProMarket.
• In conversation with Sebastian Edwards, Arnold C. Harberger reflects on his time at the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago.
• Also read "The Complicated Legacy of the "Chicago Boys" in Chile," by Chilean journalist and former Stigler Center Journalist in Residence, Daniel Matamala.

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A wet hot antitrust summer is in the news, mainly because of the Biden administration appointees continuing to take an aggressive approach to enforcement. Why is this important, and how has antitrust thinking evolved over time? In this conversation, Bethany and Luigi draw from his long-standing research and from the Stigler Center's most recent antitrust conference exploring new paradigms of traditional economic ideas. Together, they trace the evolution of antitrust from its fraught foundations to today's version, shaped by decades of political, economic, and legal minds. In the process, they spell out what a changing antitrust landscape could mean for us all.

Show Notes:

• Read a summary of the antitrust conference on ProMarket
• Watch the panel hosted by Luigi, which he references in the episode
• Revisit our episode from last year on recent research by Luigi and co-authors on declining antitrust enforcement in the U.S.

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Republican presidential candidates, such as Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, continue to keep ESG in the national conversation. Ramaswamy in particular called it "woke capitalism" in his book and on our podcast. As we take our summer break, we decided to re-release our conversation with Tariq Fancy, BlackRock’s former global chief investment officer for sustainable investing, whose criticism of ESG is based not on its goals, but rather on an insider's knowledge of how it actually works.

We’re taking a short summer break as we put together some fascinating episodes on the past and future of antitrust, the shortcomings of neoliberalism, and whether science and law are for sale in our capitalist system. In the meantime, we thought we might re-share some of our most thought-provoking episodes that are still relevant, maybe even more relevant, today. I hope you get as much out of it on a second listen as we did, and we’ll be back with brand new episodes soon. Thanks for listening. 

Link to our interview with Ramaswamy: https://podcasts.apple.com/is/podcast/is-woke-capitalism-a-threat-to-democracy/id1326698855?i=1000543737590

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In the last episode of our podcast, we had a mini version of a never-ending debate on this show: whether private equity is good or bad. Afterward we talked about doing a full episode debating the pros and cons of PE until we realized, we’d already done it. 

The debate features Jeff Hooke, author of the book "The Myth of Private Equity," and Chicago Booth Professor Steven Kaplan, once referred to by Fortune Magazine as "probably the foremost private equity scholar in the galaxy."

We’re taking a short summer break as we put together some fascinating episodes on the past and future of antitrust, the shortcomings of neoliberalism, and whether science and law are for sale in our capitalist system. In the meantime, we thought we might re-share some of our most thought-provoking episodes that are still relevant, maybe even more relevant, today. Our prior debate on private equity seemed like the perfect place to start. I hope you get as much out of it on a second listen as we did, and we’ll be back with brand new episodes soon. Thanks for listening. 

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How can public policy improve upon and fix the mess of U.S. health care? In a new book, health economists Amy Finkelstein (MIT) and Liran Einav (Stanford) argue that's the wrong question. Instead, they suggest we ask: What is it that U.S. health policy should try to accomplish?

Finkelstein, also a MacArthur Genius grantee, joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss health care as a social commitment and to make the case for free, automatic, and universal coverage for a basic set of medical services. She argues why the current patchwork system of incremental reforms isn't the answer, why insurance is not the lever to reduce racial disparities in health inequality, and why we must “tear down the system and build from the ground up.

”Finkelstein and Einav's new book, "We've Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Care," is out now.

Show Notes: On ProMarket, read:

1. Lowering the Barriers to Entry for Economics Research in Healthcare, by Filippo Lancieri
2. Rethinking How To Achieve Universal Health Care Coverage in the U.S., by Katherine Baicker, Amitabh Chandra, and Mark Shepard
3. More Than 20 Years of Consolidation Have Led to a Dysfunctional Health Care Market, by Martin Gaynor
4. The Secret Driver of U.S. Health Care Costs: Politicians Wanting to Get Reelected, by Asher Schechter

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"Poverty will be abolished in America only when a mass movement demands it," writes Princeton sociologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Matthew Desmond in his new book, "Poverty, by America." Building on his own lived experiences of growing up poor and continued contact with impoverished communities that "forces [him] to be intellectually honest," he claims that poverty persists in America not because we are incapable of preventing it but because society - and especially the wealthy - benefits from it at the expense of the poor.

Bethany and Luigi draw from their recent conversation with former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, who argued against the premise altogether and said that poverty in America is not as terrible a "scourge" as many like Desmond claim it to be. With Desmond, our hosts discuss his views on the complex and deeply entrenched root causes of poverty, its relationship with the American capitalist system, and how we could build on individual choices - towards which we have otherwise been so stubbornly resistant - to end poverty.

Show Notes:

1. In case you missed it, here's Bethany and Luigi's conversation with Sen. Phil Gramm: "Is American Inequality a Myth?"
2. Read related reading on ProMarket: "Monopolies: Silent Spreaders of Poverty and Economic Inequality" and a conversation with Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton on "The Under-Discussed Driver of Inequality in America."

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Thank you to our listeners for the feedback and engagement on last week's episode with former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm. Sen. Gramm was also one of the co-sponsors of the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999, which removed part of the Depression-era law separating investment banking from commercial banking, among others. Bethany and Luigi couldn't pass the opportunity to ask the senator about his views on a possible line from his legislation to the 2008 financial crisis and the recent SVB banking meltdown. We hope you enjoy this bonus Capitalisn't segment.

In case you missed it, here's our full conversation with Sen. Gramm: https://capitalisnt.simplecast.com/episodes/poverty-and-inequality-in-america-part-1-with-sen-phil-gramm

Also, check out ProMarket's extensive coverage on the recent banking crisis: https://www.promarket.org/2023-banking-turmoil/

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In his recent book "The Myth of American Inequality," former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm (along with co-authors Robert Ekelund and John Early) challenges conventional wisdom on the state of income inequality in the United States. Gramm argues that the gap between the rich and the poor is not as wide as often claimed because it is measured incorrectly, thus biasing public policy debates. 

On this episode, he joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss the data and evidence behind his claims, as well as implications on the pursuit of equality of opportunity, the "war on poverty," and the role of government in shaping economic outcomes. This is the first of a two-part series on poverty and inequality in America. Stay tuned for a forthcoming episode with sociologist Matthew Desmond for a perspective opposite from Sen. Gramm and his co-authors.

Bonus: While in Congress, Sen. Gramm was one of the sponsors of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, a piece of legislation that some consider to have significant ramifications on both the 2008 financial crisis and a direct line to the recent SVB banking meltdown. Keep an eye out on our handle @StiglerCenter on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube for additional Capitalisn't content on this topic.

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What if we harnessed the collective wisdom of the crowds and delegated democratic leadership to the masses?

In her book "Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the 21st Century", Yale political scientist Hélène Landemore proposes a radically new vision for "what genuine democratic representation means and how we could open up our narrow electoral institutions to ordinary citizens, including via [what she calls] open mini-publics." Drawing from ancient Athenian democracy of the past and the promise of harnessing digital technologies of the future, she joins Bethany and Luigi to talk through this vision of participatory democracy. They discuss how to best harness human nature for agency and impact, ensure transparency to provide accountability in the face of private vested interests, and ultimately its implications for market capitalism.

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