50% of seniors get their healthcare through Medicare Advantage plans, yet the growth of Medicare Advantage has been controversial. Among the topics discussed about Medicare Advantage plans, is whether these plans are overpaid based on the level of benefits they provide to plan members. Economists Amil Petrin and Keaton Miller also calculate the impact of lower payments to Medicare Advantage providers on plan members.

Trust is an important concept in economics. Economist Chris Phelan develops a theoretical model for better understanding the impact of trustworthy and opportunistic actions by governments in less developed countries. He also discusses the role of trust and understanding the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the Federal Reserve Board's monetary policy.

Join us for a discussion of the economic research behind, and the legal and policy implications of, the newly released Merger Guidelines. 

In late 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice revised their Merger Guidelines, and lowered the threshold for labor market concentration, making clear that the labor market concentration is going to be an important factor in antitrust policy going forward. University of Minnesota economist Kyle Herkenhoff and Eric Posner, University of Chicago professor and legal scholar, used economic modeling to inform policy development related to the worker welfare implications of the new 2023 Merger Guidelines. 

According to their research, roughly 10% of markets in the U.S. are “single-firm markets,” meaning one company controls the jobs in that region. Additionally, in those single-firm markets, they find that workers are paid roughly 30% less than competitive wages and that monopsony power is pervasive across American industries and cities. Our panelists will discuss how implementing lower concentration thresholds for merger reviews, as outlined in the 2023 guidelines, can effectively curb monopsony power in labor markets. By implementing a more stringent merger policy, policymakers can promote increased competition within labor markets and pave the way for improved wages and job opportunities for workers.

Moderated by Stacey Slaughter, a partner and co-chair of the Antitrust and Trade Regulation Group at Robins Kaplan LLP, this event brings together economic research, legal theory, and real world antitrust expertise to focus on the future of mergers and antitrust regulations. Don't miss this crucial discussion on the role of antitrust enforcement in shaping the future of labor market competition and advancing worker welfare.

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that in 2018, little more than a third of business income wasn't reported in tax filings. That's roughly $700 billion. Policymakers have long railed against the tax gap with little success. Economist Ellen McGrattan lays out a dynamic theory of business taxation, and she uses the framework to tease out the impact of two potential reforms, higher business taxes, and greater tax enforcement.

The federal income tax code is progressive. Now, we all know that, but what about state and local taxes? How progressive are they? And how much does progressivity vary among the states? Economist Jonathan Heathcote investigates: "We hear this term a lot progressivity in the tax code. But what does it actually mean? Proportional tax would be if I double your income, I doubled the amount of taxes you pay. A tax would be progressive if when you double your income, you pay more than twice as much in taxes. And then the opposite would be a regressive tax code: I double your income, you pay less than twice as much taxes."

UMN Economics Professor Jo Mullins says that cash assistance programs play a crucial role for poor households with children. "We know that from a pure accounting sense, if we look at what households in the United States get from Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, i.e. cash welfare, what they get from food stamps, what they get from the Earned Income Tax Credit, and more recently, the Child Tax Credit. You know, if you add all those things up, we know that they play a significant role in poverty reduction and the rates of exposure of children to what official statistics would call the poverty rate."

In late 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice revised their Merger Guidelines, and lowered the threshold for labor market concentration, making clear that the labor market concentration is going to be an important factor in antitrust policy going forward. Hear University of Minnesota economist Kyle Herkenhoff discuss the history of M&A policy and the new 2023 Merger Guidelines. 

According to Herkenhoff and his co-author's research, roughly 10% of markets in the U.S. are “single-firm markets,” meaning one company controls the jobs in that region. Additionally, in those single-firm markets, they find that workers are paid roughly 30% less than competitive wages and that monopsony power is pervasive across American industries and cities.

"We made a lot of progress in, you know, gender wage gaps and earnings gap, and so on, throughout the 70’s, the 80’s and early 90’s," says Federal Reserve Bank Researcher Anusha Nath. "And after all the policy changes that were made … we still see a huge wage gap, whether it's by gender, or whether it's by race. So even today, some of the latest numbers suggest that women earn 82 cents to $1 that men earn, if you look at the Black-white gap, it's 87 cents to $1, for Blacks versus whites."

Hear UMN Economics Professor Hannes Malmberg share why education/skills are widely acknowledged as central for economic development, yet their precise role remains uncertain. 

"What we're trying to look at is the interconnection between how much does the lack of big firms connect to the lack of education in a skilled workforce," says Malmberg. "We often assume that economic growth is a well defined concept, you know? Some countries are rich, some countries are poor. I think it's an assumption you should question. And you should look at the data."

Join us for the first episode of our new season of Office Hours. Hear HHEI Director Kjetil Storesletten discuss why inequality has increased since the 1970s.

"We worry that some people are getting a rotten deal," says UMN Economics Professor Kjetil Storesletten. "And there is perhaps a trade off between what is fair and what is efficient … we've seen the biggest increase in inequality in the century over the last [few] decades, and that's concerning to many."