The regulatory state has become a cost-benefit state, in the sense that under prevailing executive orders, agencies must catalogue the costs and benefits of regulations before issuing them, and in general, must show that their benefits justify their costs. Agencies have well-established tools...

Antitrust enforcement in the United States has declined since the 1960s. Building on several new datasets, we argue that this decline did not reflect a popular demand for weaker enforcement or any other kind of democratic sanction. The decline was engineered by unelected regulators and judges...

The DOJ and FTC clarify the role of labor market power ("monopsony") in the 2023 draft merger guidelines. The draft states in Guideline 11 that the structural presumption threshold applies to labor market concentration, while also suggesting that a stricter threshold may be warranted in labor...

Antitrust enforcement in the United States has declined since the 1960s. We investigate the political causes of this decline by looking at who made the crucial decisions and the strength of their popular mandate. Using a novel framework to understand the determinants of regulatory capture and...

Antitrust enforcement in the United States has declined since the 1960s. Building on several new datasets, we argue that this decline did not reflect a popular demand for weaker enforcement or any other kind of democratic sanction. The decline was engineered by unelected regulators and judges...

Default on sovereign debt is a form of political risk. Issuers and creditors have responded to this risk both by strengthening the terms in sovereign debt contracts that enable creditors to enforce their debts judicially and by creating terms that enable sovereigns to restructure their debts....

The DOJ and FTC clarify the role of labor market power ("monopsony") in the 2023 draft merger guidelines. The draft states in Guideline 11 that the structural presumption threshold applies to labor market concentration, while also suggesting that a stricter threshold may be warranted in labor...