Stigler Center In the News 2020

Milton Friedman was wrong on the corporation
December 8, 2020 | Financial Times
What should be the goal of the business corporation? For a long time, the prevailing view in English-speaking countries and, increasingly, elsewhere was that advanced by the economist Milton Friedman in a New York Times article, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits”, published in September 1970. I used to believe this, too. I was wrong.

A new pro-competition regime for digital markets - Advice of the Digital Markets Taskforce
December 1, 2020 | Competition and Markets Authority
In March 2020, the CMA was asked to lead a Digital Markets Taskforce, working closely with the Office of Communications (Ofcom) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), to provide advice to the government on the design and implementation of a pro-competition regime for digital markets.

One Key Trait That Predicts How Much People Will Socially Distance
November 4, 2020 | Kellogg Insight
Until a coronavirus vaccine emerges, public-health institutions across the globe are relying on people to willingly comply with their now-familiar urging to social distance, wash hands, and wear masks. What’s become apparent, however, is that adherence to these recommendations varies widely, both across geographies and among individuals. But what factors explain this variation?

Forget Antitrust Laws. To Limit Tech, Some Say a New Regulator Is Needed.
October 22, 2020 | New York Times
For decades, America’s antitrust laws — originally designed to curb the power of 19th-century corporate giants in railroads, oil and steel — have been hailed as “the Magna Carta of free enterprise” and have proved remarkably durable and adaptable.

Milton Friedman Versus Stakeholder Capitalism
October 13, 2020 | Inter Press Service
Milton Friedman was arguably the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century, associated with promoting ‘neo-liberal’, free-market, shareholder capitalism.

Why breaking up the Big Tech a bad idea
October 12, 2020 | Financial Express
It is ironic that while Silicon Valley giants tend to be Democrat, they are probably rooting for a Donald Trump victory now. Breaking up Big Tech—Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon—will take more than the Democrats even winning the Senate as there will be big court battles, but a Biden win will quicken the process if the 449-page report by the antitrust committee of the House Judiciary Committee is anything to go by.

Revisiting Milton Friedman’s Critique of Stakeholderism
September 11, 2020 | Bloomberg Businessweek
Exactly 50 years ago, economist Milton Friedman argued that corporate boards should focus on maximizing shareholder value and not get wrapped up in trying to achieve other objectives. The conventional wisdom in boardrooms today seems to be that Friedman was wrong. In fact, though, a lot of what he wrote was spot on. Sadly, the current emphasis on “stakeholder value” is one part enlightenment, one part public relations, and one part an attempt by corporate directors to get a freer hand to run companies as they personally see fit.

Milton Friedman’s Shareholder Primacy Stands the Test of Time and Helps Many Stakeholders 50 Years Later
September 11, 2020 | National Review
Exactly 50 years ago this week, Milton Friedman published his now-famous essay A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, which many, including, last year, the Business Roundtable and, this year, presidential Democratic nominee Joe Biden, decry as harmful to other stakeholders such as a company’s workers and the communities in which they operate, a claim that is difficult to support. Putting shareholders first often operates to the benefit — not the detriment — of other stakeholders.

Trump’s latest attack on Section 230 is really about censoring speech
September 9, 2020 | Report Door
One aspect of the 2020 presidential campaign that isn’t much discussed is the fact that both candidates want to end the internet as we know it. Both President Trump and Joe Biden have called for the end of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects tech companies in most cases when their users post something illegal on their platforms.

Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk make $115bn during pandemic
July 30, 2020 | Pakistan Today
While millions of jobs are projected to be lost this year as a result of the coronavirus crisis, tech moguls have seen their fortunes skyrocket. They are getting richer even faster as the pandemic drives more activity online. The collective wealth of tech billionaires has nearly doubled since 2016, from $751 billion to $1.4 trillion today. That is a faster rate than in every other sector.

Bezos, Zuckerberg Are Taking Tech Wealth to a Whole New Level
July 29, 2020 | BloombergQuint
The message from Jeff Bezos: Big Tech’s not so powerful. The message from his personal fortune: Oh yes it is. As Bezos and three other technology magnates defend their businesses at a Congressional hearing on antitrust worries Wednesday, their fast-growing wealth provides a breathtaking measure of their companies’ economic might.

As the Revolving Door Swings
July 17, 2020 | The American Prospect
In early 2019, I had the privilege of presenting my ideas on regulating tech platforms to several staff members on the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee. I told the staffers that I was worried about whether antitrust, which can address certain anti-competitive conduct by the platforms, could be counted on to police the misappropriation of data from third-party content providers, or the “self-preferencing” of their own brands or applications to their hundreds of millions of users. I recommended sector-specific regulation to address this conduct, as have other important voices, from Public Knowledge to the Stigler Center.

When Scholars Collaborate With Tech Companies, How Reliable Are the Findings?
July 12, 2020 | The New York Times
The most contested question in the gig economy may be how much workers earn, since their hourly wages can be widely uneven. Concerns about pay have helped fuel moves in California and New York City to regulate gig-economy companies as if they were more like conventional employers.

Facebook ad boycott could spur long-awaited Washington reckoning
June 30, 2020 | Bloomberg Business News
Facebook Inc. has succeeded for years in fending off critics and regulators in Washington who’ve complained about the company’s market power and its failure to protect privacy, police hate speech and curb political disinformation. Now, a boycott by major advertisers and a subsequent slide in its shares are forcing the world’s largest social media network to reckon with the very issues that policy makers have long failed to resolve.

Italy after COVID-19: Betrayal or renewal?
June 18, 2020 | Center for American Progress
The United States has the opportunity to help Italy rebuild its economy as it recovers from the coronavirus pandemic and to provide a set of practical tools that it can use to work with its European partners to do so. Supporting Italy’s recovery is a wise investment that can yield a more stable Europe and a safer Mediterranean, as well as demonstrate the good that the United States can accomplish. This is a task that the administration can take on quickly with confidence that an early focus will pay off.

Highlights from OECD roundtable on killer acquisitions
June 16, 2020 | Law 360
On June 11, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's competition committee held a roundtable on startups, killer acquisitions and merger control with different antitrust authorities to explore issues in merger control regime efficiency. While the roundtable was a closed-door, off-the-record event, the countries' submissions and speaker presentations are publicly available on the OECD's website.

Italy Press Mogul To Launch 'Progressive' Newspaper
June 16, 2020 | International Business Times
Veteran Italian businessman and press magnate Carlo de Benedetti's latest challenge is hardly his least: launching a progressive news website and paper in the middle of an economic crisis. "Domani" (Tomorrow), a web-based publication with print editions, is to begin publishing in September, giving voice to what De Benedetti called under-served "progressive, liberal and reformist" ideas.

Will lockdowns really kill more people than COVID-19 itself?
May 23, 2020 | Bangor Daily News
A recent report from the Well Being Trust estimates that about 68,000 Americans could die as a result of the isolation, loneliness and unemployment induced by the circumstances surrounding COVID-19. The White House cited statistics from the report — which predicts a surge of avoidable deaths from drugs, alcohol and suicide — to support plans to reopen the economy. The president has repeatedly made claims like “people are dying that way, too. You could make the case it’s in even greater numbers.”

Zingales on the rule of economists
May 22, 2020 | The Library of Economics and Liberty
This is the opening paragraph of a short article by Luigi Zingales, “The Political Limits of Economics,” American Economic Review, May 2020. The whole piece is worth reading, not because I agree with it but because he makes some points that are worth thinking about.

Too big to fail: The entire private sector
May 19, 2020 | The New York Times
During the 2008 financial crisis, Wall Street banks and other big financial institutions were deemed “too big to fail.” The crisis unleashed by the pandemic has broadened that elite status to a significant swath of the American private sector.

At virtual Booth roundtable, participants warn against hasty embrace of surveillance technology during pandemic
May 12, 2020 | Hyde Park Herald
During a virtual roundtable hosted by the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, participants highlighted the dangers of embracing new surveillance technology too quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic, warning that federal and corporate overreach could end up infringing on individual privacy.

United Airlines should not be bailed out
May 6, 2020 | Investor Place
There is a morality to bankruptcy that is lost if everyone gets a bailout. Take United Airlines (NYSE:UAL) and UAL stock. It’s not that they lost $1.7 billion, $6.86 per share, on revenues of $8 billion during the quarter. The second quarter will almost certainly be worse, and the third doesn’t look good, either.

Virus proves how essential teachers are
May 5, 2020 | Observer Dispatch
After years of educators staging massive walkouts and lobbying school boards to improve their dismal working conditions, it finally took the coronavirus to succeed in proving that the humble teacher is essential to a functioning American economy.

Cepeda: Coronavirus finally proves that teachers are essential
May 3, 2020 | Pantagraph
After years of educators staging massive walkouts and lobbying school boards to improve their dismal working conditions, it finally took the coronavirus to succeed in proving that the humble teacher is essential to a functioning American economy.

Costs of the shutdown, quantified [updated]
April 25, 2020 | Powerline
Casey Mulligan is an economist at the University of Chicago. Per his web site, he has served as Chief Economist of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and as a visiting professor teaching public economics at Harvard and Clemson. He is affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research, the George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State, and the Population Research Center. Mulligan has set up a web page where he estimates, on a daily basis, the cumulative costs of the COVID-19 epidemic. The analysis is based on his own paper dated April 16.

Luigi Zingales, ou le retour du « capitalisme émancipateur »
April 21, 2020 | Le Point
Ne cherchez plus le penseur de l'après-Covid-19. Nous l'avons trouvé. Il s'appelle Luigi Zingales et c'est l'un des économistes les plus écoutés de la planète. Pour cet Italien, professeur à l'université de Chicago, le monde d'après devra revenir aux origines de ce qu'est vraiment le capitalisme en corrigeant ses insoutenables déviances.

Luigi Zingales on The Dan Proft Show
April 13, 2020 | The Dan Proft Show
Luigi Zingales on The Dan Proft Show.

Capitalism after Coronavirus with Luis Garicano #1: Government capacity | Luigi Zingales
April 11, 2020 | Ciudadanos
Nuestro portavoz en Cs Europa, Luis Garicano, entrevistará a los mejores economistas del mundo en su nuevo Vlog: "El capitalismo después del coronavirus". Disfruta de la primera entrevista a Luigi Zingales, catedrático de economía en la Universidad de Chicago.

Democrats split over scope of coronavirus oversight
April 10, 2020 | Wall Street Journal
Prominent Democrat says House panel shouldn’t examine actions of Trump before pandemic; a Trump order on moon mining takes a nationalistic approach

Letter: EU will not ‘die’ if single currency fails to cope
April 9, 2020 | Financial Times
In his op-ed “EU must forge a national sense in this crisis or it will die” (April 6), Luigi Zingales gives an extremely one-sided view on the EU and the eurozone.

Letter: Case for a European response is obvious
April 8, 2020 | Financial Times
Professor Luigi Zingales is right (“EU must forge a national sense in this crisis or it will die,” April 6). This may be a crucial inflection point for Europe, and to date the European Commission and the Council have been woefully absent.

Europe cannot seem to run together: Economic warning
April 6, 2020 | Seeking Alpha
One issue keeps surfacing in Europe that seemingly hangs over all discussions of anything that goes on within the community. Can Europe ever work together to really build a united structure that in which all countries work as one common front instead of many divisive and separate nations?

COVID-19: Lessons learned from a small Italian village
April 6, 2020 | Psychology Today
A little village in Italy successfully fought against coronavirus COVID-19 with simple actions that, if implemented in the US, could save thousands of American lives.

EU under pressure to help stranded airlines
April 6, 2020 | Financial Times
Despite having thrown the “kitchen sink” at coronavirus, the EU is still under pressure to provide targeted help for Europe’s worst affected industries. The airline sector — which has been ravaged by the global lockdown — is leading the calls for help.

The EU must be forged in this crisis or it will die
April 5, 2020 | Financial Times
Italian unification hero Giuseppe Garibaldi is said to have declared during the decisive battle at Calatafimi: “Here we make Italy or we die”. The current fight over how the EU will pay to stop coronavirus can be summed up as: “Here we make Europe or Europe will die.”

Why social engineering and business shouldn’t mix
April 2, 2020 | Troy Media
The Trojan horse of social engineers has crossed the gates. At the latest World Economic Forum in Switzerland, the Davos Manifesto 2020 replaced the original from 1973. The new one lays down a company’s duties towards “stakeholders” rather than shareholders. This virtue signalling, which gives licence for meddling in private affairs, stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of capitalism. When firms serve their shareholders and engage in voluntary exchange, they generate profits by serving the wider economy.

Joseph Coletti | What’s in the CARES Act?
April 2, 2020 | Richmond County Daily Journal
The U.S. Congress and President Trump are testing whether there are any limits to debt-financed fiscal policy. Already running a $1 trillion deficit, Congress has tripled the deficit with three bills to combat the health and economic effects of the novel coronavirus. The first bill — H.R. 6074 — Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act — appropriated $8.3 billion for public health needs, including $6.2 billion to pay for the development of a coronavirus vaccine and $2 billion for state efforts through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To help taxpayers stay afloat financially, the IRS extended the filing and payment deadline for income taxes until July 15.

Are pandemic policymakers blinded by expertise?
March 31, 2020 | Asia Times
A proper kind of economic thinking will be helpful as the world seeks a balanced approach to the policy challenges raised by the current flu virus. What are needed are the ideas of trade-off, cost versus benefit, economic history, and avoidance of scapegoat blame and finger-pointing. Proper economic thinking is not about narrow expertise or specialist-dependence.

Save capitalism from the Cares Act
March 30, 2020 | Wall Street Journal
A surreal bipartisanship prevails in Washington. Everyone wants to spend, spend, spend. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who aggressively fought President Obama’s 2009 stimulus package, was delighted the other day to announce a fiscal stimulus more than twice as large.

Brasil deveria fazer 'esforço de guerra' para manter as pessoas em casa, diz economista da Universidade de Chicago
March 29, 2020 | Economia UOL
O economista italiano Luigi Zingales é professor há quase 30 anos na faculdade de negócios da Universidade de Chicago, celeiro de ideias capitalistas liberais na qual o ministro da Economia, Paulo Guedes, se orgulha de ter estudado. Os dois discordam, no entanto, sobre os caminhos a seguir diante da pandemia de coronavírus que já contaminou 660 mil pessoas e matou ao menos 30 mil no mundo todo.

Limiting antitrust misinformation by increasing agencies’ transparency
March 27, 2020 | Project Disco
The antitrust debate gives us an opportunity to think about ways to improve the U.S. competition system. In this sense, one positive aspect of the debate is that it has proven that there is room for improvement with respect to antitrust agencies’ procedures. In particular, and to avoid misinterpretations of antitrust authorities’ decisions, it would be promising to see U.S. antitrust authorities increase their transparency when investigations are closed. The latest blog post published by the Stigler Center is a good example of why increased transparency is needed.

Sen. Richard Burr, who sold stock before pandemic, voted in 2012 against banning insider trading for Congress
March 20, 2020 | The Washington Post
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) thought little of the 2012 bill that would ban insider trading for Congress, congressional staff and other federal officials. “It’s ludicrous,” Burr said in a February 2012 radio interview about the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (Stock) Act.

Italy’s lessons learned: Why COVID-19 mass testing is crucial and why younger adults need to heed warnings
March 19, 2020 | Sara Carter
A small Italian town appears to have drastically reduced coronavirus infections — reaching zero cases last week — after implementing an aggressive tactic to curb spread, according to news reports The town, Vo Euganeo, in northern Italy, saw a cluster of cases of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the third week of February and was home to the country's first death from COVID-19, on Feb. 21, according to The Straits Times.

How one small Italian town cut coronavirus cases to zero in just a few weeks
March 18, 2020 | Live Science
A small Italian town appears to have drastically reduced coronavirus infections — reaching zero cases last week — after implementing an aggressive tactic to curb spread, according to news reports. The town, Vo Euganeo, in northern Italy, saw a cluster of cases of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the third week of February and was home to the country's first death from COVID-19, on Feb. 21, according to The Straits Times.

Economics and its love-hate relationship with corruption
March 6, 2020 | The Daily Star
Abhijit Banerjee, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019, made his mark with some early work on corruption in government. However, Banerjee is not just an armchair wrestler. During the 30 years of his professional life, Banerjee, often in collaboration with his wife and fellow Nobel Laureate Esther Duflo, has conducted scientific experiments to capture the impact of corruption and identify the best intervention methods. However, as with many economic theories, the results from research are not always clean and dry.

Coronavirus: Update from Italy
March 3, 2020 | NPR
The coronavirus is showing no signs of slowing down this week, and its economic impact is continuing to grow as it spreads outside of China. When the American markets closed today, they were down almost 800 points. Japan, South Korea and Iran have all reported hundreds of cases.

Chief Economic Advisor K Subramanian guest at Express Adda today
February 26, 2020 | Financial Express
Highlighting the importance of wealth creation through liberalisation of the economy and promotion of the private sector, chief economic advisor Krishnamurthy V Subramanian laid out a blueprint for India to chart the path towards achieving the $5-trillion economy target in the Economic Survey 2019-20.

How economists capture policymaking
February 24, 2020 | Livemint
Economists the world over are meant to help policymakers, but could be undermining democratically taken policy decisions, according to an essay by Luigi Zingales of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago. Economists have cast a web of regulatory capture that promotes the expert’s view at the cost of the collective decision-making power of public institutions, Zingales argues.

Patients reticent to share health data with tech companies
February 18, 2020 | Patient Engagement Hit
Nearly all patients are unwilling to share their health data with large technology companies for free, with most saying they’d demand upwards of $100,000 for their coveted health records, according to data from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business.This finding comes as the healthcare industry grapples with big tech companies and their emergence in the healthcare sector.

Confused about economics? Listen to this handy — and yes, fun — podcast
February 16, 2020 | OZY
It all started — as most great ideas seem to — practically by accident. During a visit to the University of Chicago, where economist Kate Waldock was interviewing for a job, prominent faculty member Luigi Zingales struck up a conversation at an after-hours social with a request: Surprise us with something interesting about yourself. If she weren’t a finance professor, Waldock answered, she’d probably be hosting a podcast. “At the time, I was listening to podcasts constantly,” she said.

10 Podcast Recommendations For Tax Attorneys
February 12, 2020 | Law 360
As tax lawyers pore over the latest regulations from the Internal Revenue Service or prepare for upcoming litigation, they may need a distraction to give their brains a break.

How much should health data cost? $100K or more, according to patients
February 12, 2020 | Becker's Hospital Review
More than 90 percent of Americans would refuse to share their health data with digital platforms for free, according to a survey administered in the wake of the reveal of Google and St. Louis-based Ascension's "Project Nightingale." The annual Financial Trust Index Survey, conducted in December by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Evanston, Ill.-based Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, asked more than 1,000 Americans about the circumstances under which they would agree to share health data for a hypothetical Facebook health project, according to a Booth blog post.

An Interview with Luigi Zingales, Director of the Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State
January 25, 2020 | The Politic
Mr. Zingales, formerly President of the American Finance Association, is a finance professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and directs the George Stigler Center and the Center for Economic Analysis. In addition to serving as a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, he serves as a fellow to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Center for Economic Policy Research, and the European Governance Institute.

Did Corporations Fund the Rise of Law and Economics in the 1940s and 1950s?
January 23, 2020 | Reason
A post by Robert Van Horn at the blog of Stigler Center of University of Chicago's Business school asserts that "from 1946 throughout the 1950s, corporations made possible and crucially supported the rise of Chicago law and economics through funding and advice…" He implies that corporate involvement influenced the normative positions of Chicago School economics, in particular skepticism of antitrust laws.

Muchos inversionistas fraccionan proyectos inmobiliarios para aumentar ganancias
January 19, 2020 | El Periodista
El renombrado economista a nivel mundial, Luigi Zingales, quien expuso en el Congreso Futuro 2020, desenmascaró a la abusadora élite chilena, al decir que aquí no hay verdadera competencia en los mercados y que las trampas que cometen los de cuellos y corbata no tienen efectivas sanciones. Al capitalismo chileno lo motejó como de “amigotes y de yernos” y otras cosas que este columnista, en la prensa libre de tutelas, está denunciando hace años.

Luigi Zingales y el capitalismo: “La competencia es clave, reduce la desigualdad, la discriminación y el racismo”
January 19, 2020 | CNN Chile
Es uno de los economistas más influyentes en el debate actual, profesor de Emprendimiento y Finanzas en la Universidad de Chicago, la misma de los Chicago Boys. Defensor de la idea del capitalismo, pero también un duro crítico de los intereses que la corrompen.

¿Cómo abordamos la libre competencia del mercado tras estallido social? Debaten Luigi Zingales, Joaquín Lavin, Ignacio Briones y Karen Poniachik
January 19, 2020 | CNN Chile
En Nuevo Pacto un destacado panel de expertos debatió sobre la regulación de la libre competencia del mercado. Luigi Zingales, economista de la U. de Chicago; el ministro de Hacienda, Ignacio Briones; el alcalde de Las Condes, Joaquín Lavín; y la ex ministra de Minería, Karen Poniachik, dialogaron este domingo sobre el impacto del estallido en las medidas para evitar la corrupción y la colusión de las empresas; además de las competencias necesarias para manejarse dentro del ámbito laboral en nuestro país.

Luigi Zingales, economista de la Universidad de Chicago: "Chile debería actualizar el modelo"
January 19, 2020 | Emol
El economista de la Universidad de Chicago, Luigi Zingales, analizó la actualidad económica de Chile este domingo y sostuvo que "Chile debería actualizar el modelo". Además, explicó la importancia de la competencia en el mercado. "Creo que el mundo ha cambiado mucho desde el modelo de Chicago cuando fue importado a Chile. Chicago ha cambiado, el mundo ha cambiado. Creo que Chile tiene que actualizarse", comentó el economista en el programa "Nuevo Pacto" de CNN y Chilevisión.

Columna de Daniel Matamala: La hora del populismo
January 18, 2020 | La Tercera
El populismo es inevitable. La única pregunta es: ¿qué forma de populismo?”. Eso escribía en 2012 el economista de la Universidad de Chicago Luigi Zingales. Y, con el ojo afinado por su experiencia como italiano, ya anticipaba quién se convertiría en el Berlusconi estadounidense: Donald Trump.

Destacado economista de U de Chicago: "Chile tiene una élite pequeña como la de la Francia antigua"
January 17, 2020 | BioBio Chile
El académico italiano y profesor de la Universidad de Chicago, Luigi Zingales, invitado al país por CNN Chile, participará en el programa de debate y actualidad conducido por Daniel Matamala, Nuevo Pacto. En el programa que será transmitido de manera simultánea por CNN y Chilevisión, el domingo a las 09:00 horas, el experto analizará la situación social en Chile.

Así nos ve un economista de la Universidad de Chicago
January 17, 2020 | Las Últimas Noticias
Para describir lo que pasa hoy en Chile, Luigi Zingales compartió lo que percibia cuando su hija y su hijo jugaban Monopoly cuando eran chicos.

Luigi Zingales: “En Chile hay un ‘capitalismo de amigotes’ y ‘de yernos’ que no produce beneficios para todos”
January 16, 2020 | CNN Chile
Luigi Zingales, economista y académico de la Universidad de Chicago, llegó a Santiago para participar en Congreso Futuro 2020. Su visión crítica sobre el capitalismo ha llamado la atención viniendo de un catedrático del corazón de este modelo económico. Sus intereses se extienden desde gobernanza corporativa hasta el desarrollo financiero, economía política y efectos económicos de la cultura, co-desarrolló el índice de confianza financiera en EEUU.

Are big tech monopolies ruining American capitalism?
January 15, 2020 | Futurity
Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago often says that only an immigrant like himself can really appreciate American capitalism. In his native Italy, Zingales says what you know and what you do are far less important that who you know and what you do for them. But in the last decade, Zingales says the United States has started to look more and more like the country he left. Now, he’s trying to save American capitalism from itself—and big businesses including Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

The changing face of economics
January 10, 2020 | Project Syndicate
Responding to pressures from within and without, the economics profession is gradually changing for the better. Not surprisingly, the populist backlash sweeping advanced democracies in recent years has produced some soul searching in the discipline. After all, the austerity, free-trade deals, financial liberalization, and labor market deregulation that caused it rested on the ideas of economists.

The week in tech: Our hidden gems of 2019
January 3, 2020 | The New York Times
Hi, everyone, this is Nellie Bowles, a tech writer for The New York Times in San Francisco. And I’m here to let you in on a sad truth. Sometimes news breaks that is more exciting or terrifying or compelling for whatever reason than our beautiful articles about tech. Maybe the article was a long feature that came out right after the impeachment vote. Maybe it was a carefully wrought profile that coincided with Jeffrey Epstein’s death.

Team Nirmala: A look at FM's team that is led by finance secretary Rajiv Kumar
January 2, 2020 | The Economic Times
Subramanian’s first Economic Survey in July did some ‘Blue Sky Thinking’ to achieve and sustain 8% growth to reach the $5-trillion economy goal. The survey had put people at the centre of policy making and suggested how a small nudge could bring about big changes. A PhD in financial Economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business under professor Luigi Zingales and Raghuram Rajan, Subramanian will now be watched for his inputs to turn around the slowing economy.

Bias fears over Uber academic research programme
January 2, 2020 | Times Higher Education
Uber is facing questions over its joint papers with academic economists, with critics warning that selective data sharing and conflicts of interest could be skewing research to support the ride-hailing company’s business model. Since 2015, university economists have collaborated with Uber employees, often using the company’s data, on at least 10 papers.