In the News

In The News 2024

Trump pledged more tariffs. We have no idea what they will do.
Nov 12 | The Washington Post
Capitalisn’t podcast host Bethany McLean’s writes how weighing the pros and cons of tariffs more complicated than their effects on consumer prices for the Washington Post.

Grow the Economic Pie, Don’t Reallocate It
Oct 28 | Cato Institute 
Jeffrey Miron and Constantin Wells’ ProMarket article on how economic policies that redistribution of resources rather than maximizing efficiencies harm the economy and voters shared in the Cato at Liberty blog.

Luigi Zingales Named Member of American Academy of Sciences and Letters
Oct 24 | Stigler Center News 
Announcement on our faculty director Luigi Zingales being named a member of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters.

Restoring Trust in Capitalism with Luigi Zingales
Oct 17 | SHRM (edited) 
A summary of faculty director Luigi Zingales’s appearance on SHRM’s Tomorrowist podcast.

Hi, you’re through to the conflicts of interest hotline
October 10, 2024 | POLITICO
Stigler Center working paper, "The Conflict-of-Interest Discount in the Marketplace of Ideas," listed in POLITICO’S EU Influence newsletter by Elisa Braun.

For Economists, Defending Big Business Can Be Big Business
September 20, 2024 | The New York Times
Dennis Carlton’s commentary on the draft merger guidelines for ProMarket cited in the New York Times’ article on corporate influence in economic research.

“The US is becoming more like Italy every day, except for the food and the good wine”
September 16, 2024 | Schweizer Monat
Our faculty director Luigi Zingales’s interview for Schweizer Monat with its deputy editor-in-chief Lukas Leuzinger

How antitrust law led to the telephone
September 10, 2024 | Legal Dive
Aaron Honsowetz ProMarket article on how antitrust laws helped produce the telephone cited in Legal Dive.

The Governance Dilemma
September 6, 2024 | NordSIP
Luigi Zingales’s keynote presentation for Swedish House of Finance’s annual conference on corporate governance cited in NordSIP.

Alumni Profile: Utsav Gandhi, MPP’20
September 6, 2024 | UChicago Harris School of Public Policy News
University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy alum Utsav Gandhi shares his experience as a research professional for the Stigler Center in his alumni profile.

Big Tech's Big Gamble with AI: Are They Overextending?
August 30, 2024 | International Business Times
John B. Kirkwood’s ProMarket article on how Big Tech companies’ partnerships AI startups could harm competition cited in International Business Times’ article on big tech investments in AI.

Seven Scholars Join Georgetown Law Faculty
August 26, 2024 | Georgetown Law
Stigler Center fellow Filippo Lancieri highlighted as one of several scholars joining Georgetown Law’s faculty.

We Need Smart Laws, Not Fewer Laws
August 16, 2024 | Newsweek
Vikramaditya Khanna’s ProMarket article, “Holding Corporations and Executives Accountable Depends on Our Legal System,” was cited in Newsweek.

Google’s AI future depends on Android—a DOJ threat to split it off creates an existential crisis
August 14, 2024 | Fortune
ProMarket's article with four antitrust experts on their assessment of the FTC’s complaint against Amazon cited in a piece on what the Google antirust ruling could mean for the future of Google and Big Tech.

Pharmacy Benefit Managers Under Pressure To Reform For Years, But It Hasn’t Yet Mattered
August 4, 2024 | Forbes
Stacy Mitchell and Zach Freed's ProMarket article on how the FTC enabled the market power of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) was cited in a piece on how the federal scrutiny PBMs have faced has not yet resulted in material reform.

Zaggle's MD & CEO Avinash Godkhindi On His Four Favourite Books
July 27, 2024 | Entrepreneur
Zaggle's MD & CEO Avinash Godkhindi listed Saving Capitalism from Capitalists by University of Chicago Booth School of Business professors Raghuram Rajan and Luigi Zingales as one of his four favorite books.

The Right Industrial Policy Is Knowledge Policy
July 3, 2024 | Project Syndicate
Our Faculty Director, Luigi Zingales, co-wrote an op-ed for Project Syndicate arguing that the right industrial policy is knowledge policy, and why we should prioritize diffusion over innovation.

President Biden’s Distrust Challenge
June 18, 2024 | The New York Times
Long before Trump became president, Zingales warned that he could. Shortly after Trump’s 2016 victory, Zingales wrote an Opinion essay in The Times outlining the political strategies that tend to fail when opposing a figure like Trump.

A Deeper Look at Divestment
June 5, 2024 | The Triangle
…as Oliver Hart, an economics professor at Harvard, and Luigi Zingales, a professor of finance at the University of Chicago, write in Compact, “Students need to be confronted with moral questions, such as whether…being associated with defense contractors is worth the tuition discount.”

Divestment from Israel roils universities. Would it work? Some are dubious
May 21, 2024 | Los Angeles Times
“Divesting from publicly traded companies that are associated with Israel is relatively easy,” said Zingales, the University of Chicago professor. “If you are involving the private equity and venture capital component — a big component of the portfolio of every endowment — that is much more complicated. In fact, doing it immediately is impossible.”

Inside the tense talks between Columbia protestors and administrators before NYPD moved in
May 9, 2024 | CNN
“It’s much more difficult to put restrictions on the indirect investments,” said Luigi Zingales, a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Zingales argued that pro-Palestinian protesters would probably have more success in achieving their goals if they focused on only a few specific companies in which universities have direct investments rather than calls for broader divestment.

What does divesting from Israel really mean?
May 7, 2024 | Vox
“Students need to be confronted with moral questions, such as whether Columbia being associated with defense contractors is worth the tuition discount,” Oliver Hart, an economics professor at Harvard, and Luigi Zingales, a professor of entrepreneurship and finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, write in Compact.

Universities are becoming dependent on donations
May 6, 2024 | Bloomberg Surveillance
Our Faculty Director, Luigi Zingales, joins Bloomberg TV for a segment discussing ongoing student protests and demands for divestment.

Student protesters are calling for divestment from Israel. Here’s what that means.
May 3, 2024 | PolitiFact
Our Faculty Director, Luigi Zingales, spoke about the complications of colleges divesting from Israel and the track record of calls for divestment, for example, from South Africa during apartheid and from fossil fuels.

Colleges Owe Students Investment Transparency
May 2, 2024 | Compact Magazine
Our Faculty Director, Luigi Zingales, co-wrote an op-ed for Compact Magazine (with Nobel Laureate Sir Oliver Hart) arguing for greater investment transparency by universities. 

The 2024 Social Media Ranking Of Free-Market Organizations
April 30, 2024 | Forbes
Capitalisn’t is hosted by a renowned economist, Luigi Zingales, and [acclaimed investigative reporter] Bethany McLean. It focuses on the many barriers that impede the free economy from producing its natural fruits. The Capitalisn’t podcast has high Chartable rankings in many countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Spain.

Yes, I'm a Proud 'Khan-Servative'
April 24, 2024 | Compact Magazine's Substack
One of our 2024 Antitrust and Competition Conference speakers, Compact Magazine founder and editor Sohrab Ahmari, reflects on his experience attending the conference. 

US Antitrust Chief Preaches Revolution to Next Generation
April 24, 2024 | Bloomberg
One of our 2024 Antitrust and Competition Conference speakers, Bloomberg reporter Leah Nylen, writes about a discussion and talk given by conference keynote speaker, Department of Justice Antitrust Division Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter. 

Power, productivity, and how our system works
April 22, 2024 | Financial Times
During a two-day antitrust conference hosted by Chicago Booth’s Stigler Center, a panel of experts discussed how much antitrust action affects productivity growth.

Meta considered paying users for data, a lawsuit reveals
April 8, 2024 | Business Insider
An article in ProMarket by economist Nicholas Economides, in which he has publicly stated his stance that the online dominance of Facebook and Google has harmed users and competition and that users are effectively forced to give up their data for free, is cited in legal testimony.

Podcast: The New Business of News, with Ben Smith (Capitalisn't)
March 29, 2024 | American Press Institute
Thank you to the American Press Institute for sharing our recent Capitalisn’t episode with journalist Ben Smith as one of their suggested weekend reads.

How Big Tech Undermines Democracy
March 20, 2024 | Compact Magazine
Our Faculty Director, Luigi Zingales, co-wrote an op-ed for Compact Magazine (with Columbia professor Tano Santos), arguing that it is in Big Tech’s business interests to deteriorate our offline spaces and make the case for interoperability on social media.

What The FTC Lawsuit Against Kroger Could Mean For Grocers
February 27, 2024 | Forbes
Christine P. Bartholomew’s ProMarket article, “Why the Kroger-Albertsons Merger Is a Mess for Consumers," was cited in Forbes. 

Kroger, Albertsons, and the Biden Administration’s New Antitrust Playbook
February 29, 2024 | The New York Times
University of Chicago Law School Professor Eric Posner’s ProMarket article, “Why the FTC Should Focus on Labor Monopsony,” was cited in The New York Times. 

Exxon is taking its shareholders to court as the anti-ESG backlash escalates into a civil war between the proponents of shareholder primacy
February 8, 2024 | FORTUNE
Investors are, after all, people, too. This view has been put forth by economists Oliver Hart and Luigi Zingales in a series of articles, writes our former contributing editor for ProMarket, Walter Frick.

Y2K23’s Y2K moment: Blaming the internet for bank runs
February 5, 2024 | Financial Times
In a piece for the Financial Times, Steven Kelly mentions Luigi Zingales’ paper and ProMarket article with Naz Koont and Tano Santos on slower-moving “bank walks” in response to changing interest rates and digital apps’ role.

Things aren’t looking good for Roomba maker, iRobot: Stock plunges after Amazon deal axed
January 30, 2024 | Fast Company
Lucas Konce’s ProMarket article on how Wall Street impacts national security is cited in an article on Amazon’s attempted acquisition of iRobot.

< Econ Battle Zone: Disinflation Confrontation
January 19, 2024 | NPR's Planet Money
Luigi Zingales joins the show’s “Econ Battle Zone” to debate and discuss disinflation, supply chains, and more.

How Fighting Monopoly Can Save Journalism
January 16, 2024 | Washington Monthly
Sandeep Vaheesan’s ProMarket article on Robert Bork was cited in the Washington Monthly.

Record cold could squash Iowa caucus voter turnout
January 12, 2024 | Semafor
A study of elections in India found that extreme conditions, especially those that affect the agricultural productivity of rural voters, can actually increase voter turnout by pushing voters to elect candidates with agricultural backgrounds; researchers wrote for the University of Chicago’s ProMarket publication.

Luigi Zingales, el mercado del trabajo y la IA: “Habrá un montón de descontento”
January 12, 2024 | La Tercera
Zingales is also an enthusiastic speaker and promoter of economic debate, and this is clear with his podcast “Capitalisn't,” which he has co-hosted since 2018 and where, together with journalist Bethany McLean, he interviews and encourages discussions with other academics. and authors. As can be deduced from its clever title, “Capitalisn't” is, by its very definition, a podcast about what capitalism is and is not.

Introducing AFRICA FINANCE TODAY
January 9, 2024 | Africa Finance Today
This idea has always been on the back of my mind ever since I became a reporter. Still, the turning point of this tiny but ambitious project was last year when I received a study fellowship from the Stigler Centre for the Study of the State and the Economy at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

The Great Scramble
January 8, 2024 | The Free Press
Tania Diaz Bazan’s ProMarket article on wealthier donors preferring Hillary Clinton was cited in The Free Press.

Why Grocery And Pharmacy Workers Oppose The Kroger/Albertsons Merger
January 4, 2024 | Forbes
Claire Kelloway’s ProMarket article on the Kroger/Albertson’s merger cited in a piece on why pharmacy/grocery workers oppose the merger.