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Is capitalism the engine of destruction or the engine of prosperity? On this podcast we talk about the ways capitalism is—or more often isn’t—working in our world today. Hosted by Vanity Fair contributing editor, Bethany McLean and world renowned economics professor Luigi Zingales, we explain how capitalism can go wrong, and what we can do to fix it.
Cover photo attributions: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/research/stigler/about/capitalisnt.
If you would like to send us feedback, suggestions for guests we should bring on, or connect with Bethany and Luigi, please email: contact at capitalisnt dot com. If you like our show, we’d greatly appreciate you giving us a rating or a review. It helps other listeners find us too.
The podcast Capitalisn’t is created by University of Chicago Podcast Network. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
The public often imagines corporations as self-contained actors that provide a set of goods and services to consumers. Underpinning this image have been ideas of ownership, rights to capital and intellectual property, and corporate responsibility to stakeholders including consumers, workers, and shareholders. But what if almost everything we are told about the essence of the firm is wrong? So writes Sir John Kay, a British economist, corporate director, and longstanding fellow of St John’s College (Oxford) in his new book, The Corporation in the 21st Century.
The book revolves around contrasts between historical conceptions of corporations, capitalism, and contemporary practices. Kay writes, “A central thesis of [this] book is that business has evolved, but the language that is widely used to describe business has not.” In the 19th and 20th centuries, firms could be defined in terms of their control over material forms of productive capital (factories, steel foundries, railways, etc.) Socioeconomic critiques of capitalism, most prominently from Karl Marx, often centered on firms’ control of the means of production. Kay contends that firms today access productive capital as a service. For example, Amazon does not own its warehouses but rents them from another firm. Kay writes that today’s corporations and capitalism “[have] very little to do with ‘capital’ and nothing whatsoever to do with any struggle between capitalists and workers to control the means of production.”
Kay joins Luigi and Bethany to discuss the implications of this evolution in firms’ relation to capital: Why is it important to capitalism that its biggest firms no longer own their means of production? Why does the language used to describe this matter? What do Apple's manufacturing facilities, Amazon's warehouses, and TikTok's algorithms tell us about our notions of business ownership? How have these changes to capitalism redefined the struggle between the owners of capital, managers, workers, and consumers? In the process, Kay, Luigi, and Bethany explore the failures of capitalism and imagine what could and should be the purpose of the 21st-century corporation.
Show Notes:
Read an excerpt from the book (published by Yale University Press) on ProMarket
In Bethany and Luigi’s closing discussion of Kay’s book, Luigi cites several articles he has published on the topic, which we have linked below for the listener’s reference. In this past scholarship, Luigi studies how a firm and its operations often intertwine with other firms to form an ecosystem, and it is only through this ecosystem that value is created. Apple and Foxconn provide one example. Legally, they are distinct firms, yet Luigi contends they can be understood as elements of an ecosystem that creates value. Hence, it is sometimes productive to think beyond legal boundaries to consider how multiple firms may compose such a value-creating ecosystem in practice. Within the Apple/Foxconn ecosystem, Apple has a significant influence in dictating terms for Foxconn. Further, if Apple has such dominating power over its suppliers, then Apple could be said to have market power that raises antitrust concerns, which are less obvious if we take the legal boundaries of firms as the correct method of conceptualizing them.
Zingales, L., 2000. In search of new foundations. The Journal of Finance, 55(4), pp.1623-1653.
Rajan, R.G. and Zingales, L., 1998. Power in a Theory of the Firm. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 113(2), pp.387-432.
Rajan, R.G. and Zingales, L., 2001. The firm as a dedicated hierarchy: A theory of the origins and growth of firms. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(3), pp.805-851.
Zingales, L. (1998) Corporate Governance. In: Newman, P., Ed., The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law, Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Lancieri, F., Posner, E.A. and Zingales, L., 2023. The Political Economy of the Decline of Antitrust Enforcement in the United States. Antitrust Law Journal, 85(2), pp.441-519.
Daniel Ziblatt is an American political scientist, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University, and the co-author (with Steven Levitsky) of several bestselling books, including How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority. Ziblatt writes from the position that what defines strong democracies is free and fair competition for power, inclusive participation, and a package of civil liberties that make those first two conditions possible.
2024 saw voters in more than 60 countries go to the polls—and deliver difficult outcomes for incumbents and traditional political parties. This week, Ziblatt joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss the fate of democracy after 2024. They explore how big money and corporate power have destabilized democracies worldwide by interfering with the conditions for free and fair competition for power. The consequence has been the movement of voters toward political extremes, which in turn can often threaten economic growth, civil liberties, and the rule of law. Nevertheless, should we judge the strength of democracy by process or outcome? Does democracy still thrive when the people vote for undemocratic politicians and parties?
Together, Ziblatt and our co-hosts discuss how to curb global democratic decline by realigning government away from the interests of corporations or big money and back to those of the people.
Episode Notes:
Revisit ProMarket’s series seeking to understand the issues of political economy driving global populist movements during the 2024 “year of elections.”
Are bailouts the new “trickle-down” economics? Have government debt and deficits caused capitalism’s collapse—thus ending the American Dream?
Ruchir Sharma is a well-known columnist for the Financial Times, the author of bestselling books Breakout Nations and The Rise and Fall of Nations, and an investment banker who worked as Morgan Stanley’s head of emerging markets for 25 years. His new book, What Went Wrong With Capitalism, traces the roots of current disaffection with our capitalist economy to unabashed stimulus and too much government intervention. Take an example: Sharma writes that the United States federal government has introduced 3,000 new regulations in the last twenty years, and withdrawn just 20 over the same span. He likens the Federal Reserve’s constant bailouts—under chairs appointed by presidents from both parties—to the opioid crisis, in which the solution created more problems than the pain it was designed to treat.
Sharma joins Bethany and Luigi to explain how constant government intervention leads to inefficient “zombie” firms, higher property prices, housing shortages, massive inequality, and a historic government debt and deficit crisis. Together, they discuss the first step to a cure—a correct diagnosis of the problem—and how to approach the treatment without exacerbating the problems. In the process, they leave us with a renewed understanding of how “pro-business is not the same as pro-capitalism,” a distinction that Sharma says “continues to elude us.”
Episode Notes:
Link to submit papers for the Stigler Center 2025 Antitrust Conference
Revisit “Is the Federal Reserve an Engine of Inequality?”, our previous episode on modern monetary theory or the claim that debt doesn’t matter.
Revisit “Capitalism After the Crisis,” Luigi’s article for Foreign Affairs (2009), where he outlines the tensions between a pro-capitalism and a pro-business agenda.
Also, check out ProMarket.org, our publication at the Stigler Center that he founded in 2016, with the mission of shedding light on this tension and how to ameliorate it.
A new U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Its goals include administrative reductions, cost savings, regulatory cutbacks, and reducing federal spending by nearly $2 trillion. President-elect Donald Trump has called DOGE the "Manhattan Project of our time," and has indicated that DOGE will reduce regulatory burdens to firms and individuals. But is the act of cutting rules and regulations the same as cutting spending? Does it unleash the economy in a way that benefits everyone or just a select few who don't want the rules in the first place?
Right now, it’s impossible to know what DOGE will be able to accomplish, but there is another remarkably similar example we can learn from. Argentinian President Javier Milei took office a year ago with a promise to “take a chainsaw to the state.” As part of that promise, he appointed economist Federico Sturzenegger – a former classmate of Luigi's at MIT – as the Minister of Deregulation and State Transformation of the Argentine Republic. Within a year, Sturzenegger has overseen the review of approximately 42,000 laws, and as confirmed by Milei, is in "direct contact" with Musk.
Bethany and Luigi talk to Sturzenegger to understand, most importantly, what Argentina's experience might foretell about DOGE's upcoming role and impact on the United States government and economy.
For years, the world worried about overpopulation and our capacity to sustain ever-increasing numbers of people. Now, the worry is underpopulation—and recent numbers are stunning. Fertility rate is the average number of children that are born to a woman over her lifetime. According to the United Nations, this number is currently 1.64 in the U.S.: If it stays this way, in three generations there will only be half as many young Americans as there are today, holding immigration constant. In China, this number is even lower: one child per woman. Just eight countries are expected to account for more than half the rise in global population between now and 2050.
Economic theory is based on the idea of expansion, and humanity has been expanding since 1500. If that is about to change, then the very foundation of our economic theory will need rethinking.
Acclaimed author, historian, and filmmaker Sir Niall Ferguson (Stanford/Harvard) joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss why we're heading toward a global population decline and what it all means for civilization. They discuss how factors like climate change, immigration, reproductive rights, artificial intelligence, and the trade-offs women face between career and motherhood are influencing decisions to have children. What are the implications of falling birth rates not just for the market economy but also for geopolitics and intergenerational conflict? Can we reverse trends in fertility before it is too late?
While Americans rely on debit transactions for the necessities of life, most are unaware of the networks that drive those transactions, nor are they aware that one company, Visa, has monopolized debit transactions, penalized industry participants that seek to use alternative debit networks, and co-opted innovators, technology companies, and financial institutions to forestall or snuff out threats to Visa's debit network dominance.” So begins the monopolization lawsuit filed on September 24 by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) against the country’s largest card company, Visa Inc.
On one level, the case is simple: The DOJ alleges a clear violation of laws protecting markets against monopolies. But the case gets more complicated when looking at the details, in part because payment systems are mostly invisible part of the financial ecosystem. In effect, the DOJ alleges that Visa is pulling the levers of a really opaque and complex system to preclude competition and squeeze fees out of banks and vendors for itself.To understand the complexities and implications of the case, Bethany and Luigi are joined by Kathryn Judge, Harvey J. Goldschmid Professor of Law at Columbia University. Judge is an expert on banking, financial crises, regulatory architecture, and intermediation design beyond finance. Her book, Direct: The Rise of the Middleman Economy and the Power of Going to the Source (HarperBusiness, 2022), was on the long list for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award. Together, the three of them discuss both the surface-level and structural issues of an economy where consumers and small businesses are shortchanged on what is essentially a private sales tax on all debit-card purchases—and how to look for collective solutions when opt-outs aren’t possible.
Episode Notes: Also check out the ProMarket article “A DOJ Victory Against Visa May Not Help Merchants or Consumers” by Lulu Wang, Assistant Professor of Finance at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
As the United States elections draw near, everyone is wondering who will take control of Washington next. In this week’s Capitalisn’t episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Brody Mullins reveals how the real winner will be neither Democrats nor Republicans. Rather, it will be the lobbyists.
Mullins is the co-author (along with his brother Luke, also an investigative reporter) of The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government. Brody joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss how corporations ranging from Genentech to Google participate in the invisible but massively influential lobbying industry to bend government policy toward their favor. Together, the three trace the roots and evolution of political lobbying from the 1970s to now and explore how it penetrates and leverages other spheres of society to abet its operations. How are academia and the media complicit in this ecosystem of influence operations? How has lobbying adapted to the changing attitudes of Americans towards Big Business? How might it change under either a Harris or Trump administration and beyond?
Episode Notes: Luigi mentions the transformational work of one figure in American politics who fought back against lobbyists’ substantial influence: consumer advocate Ralph Nader. Revisit our prior conversation and episode with Mr. Nader.
You asked and we answered: Over the last year, we have solicited listeners’ questions via voicemail, email, and social media. In this episode, our producer, Matt, turns the tables on Bethany and Luigi and puts them in the hot seat to answer your burning questions in an Ask Me Anything “AMA” format.
How do Bethany and Luigi actually define capitalism? Does universal basic income disincentivize work? Does the adoption of artificial intelligence mean we need to rethink economics? What would Bethany and Luigi do if they were president for a day? And perhaps the scariest one of all: does Luigi believe in taking time off?
Last week, United States presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump delivered hour-long speeches outlining their economic policies for the country if they win in November. This week on a special episode of Capitalisn’t, Bethany and Luigi weigh in on the candidates’ economic proposals. What makes this discussion particularly urgent is that neither candidate is espousing a traditional Republican or Democratic platform. Further, despite the length of their respective speeches, there were few specifics. Instead, both candidates are running on "vibes" more than detailed manifestos. With just under five weeks to go before Election Day, Bethany and Luigi sift through the proposals around taxes, tariffs, price gouging, and the “Opportunity Economy,” helping us separate the substance from the slogans.
International technology policy expert, Stanford University academic, and former European parliamentarian Marietje Schaake writes in her new book that a “Tech Coup” is happening in democratic societies and fast approaching the point of no return. Both Big Tech and smaller companies are participating in it, through the provision of spyware, microchips, facial recognition, and other technologies that erode privacy, speech, and other human rights. These technologies shift power to the tech companies at the expense of the public and democratic institutions, Schaake writes.
Schaake joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss proposals for reversing this shift of power and maintaining the balance between innovation and regulation in the digital age. If a "tech coup" is really underway, how did we get here? And if so, how can we safeguard democracy and individual rights in an era of algorithmic governance and surveillance capitalism?
Marietje Schaake’s new book, “The Tech Coup: Saving Democracy From Silicon Valley,” is available here. Read an excerpt from the book on ProMarket here.
America’s universities have powered its economy by developing an educated workforce and producing transformative technology, including the internet and vaccines. They were seen as vehicles for social mobility; when veterans returned home from World War II, the newly enacted G.I. Bill compensated millions with paid college and vocational school tuition. However, universities today are bloated and expensive, losing the public's trust, and have become a battleground for controversial culture wars. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump administration, plans significant cuts to university subsidies. A big battle is looming over the future of American universities.
To shed some light on what this future might look like, Bethany and Luigi are joined by Hanna Gray, Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of History and President of the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1993 — a period marked by immensely challenging debates on free speech, financial constraints, and leadership decisions. Gray has written that the creation of the modern university “rested on a faith, pervasive in the post-war world, and the potential for education to create a better world, to produce both social mobility and a meritocratic society that would realize the true promise of democracy.” With her trademark humor, sharp wit, and unwavering resolve, she offers insights from her trailblazing experience into whether this promise is more unkept than kept and if faith will be enough for the modern university system to survive.
Episode Notes: Read the Kalven Report on the University's Role in Political and Social Action here.
Is race a more consequential determinant of social mobility than class? How and under what circumstances do Americans move up the economic ladder?
For years, Harvard economist Raj Chetty has leveraged big data to answer these questions. In his recent paper, Chetty and his team show that Black millennials born to low-income parents have more quickly risen up the economic ladder than previous Black generations, whereas their white counterparts have fared worse than previous low-income white generations. That said, Chetty finds little movement in or out of the top income brackets and that the income gap between Black and white Americans remains large.
Chetty joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss these new insights as well as why mobility matters, what costs come in the pursuit of bolstering mobility, and how other factors such as parenting, gender, and social capital factor into the equation. What policies should America pursue, especially against the backdrop of the 2024 presidential election, where many conservatives argue that white working-class Americans are falling behind and liberals argue that Black and brown Americans continue to face systemic inequalities?
Show notes:
This week we're taking a quick summer break, but in the meantime, we wanted to re-share a special episode that is relevant in the news again. With the recent federal court ruling that Google engaged in illegal monopolization of internet searches, we thought it would be a great opportunity to share our episode with lawyer Dina Srinivasan. She's an expert in the field of competition policy and a fellow with the Thurman Arnold Project at Yale University. Google is no stranger to lawsuits and has previously defeated many of them, but now, antitrust experts are optimistic that this case against Google's advertising business is even stronger for the government than the Search case that Google lost just last week.
To simplify the apparent complexity of the case and understand why and how it matters to consumers, the advertising market, the tech industry, and the economy, Luigi conducted a special bonus interview with Srinivasan. Following the interview, Bethany joins Luigi to discuss the implications of this case for consumer harm, the business model of journalism, democracy, and beyond.
Read more on ProMarket: https://www.promarket.org/tag/google-ad-tech-case/
Watch: 2024 Antitrust and Competition Conference | Antitrust Case Studies: Google https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw6-LaVh55U
Harvard professor of international political economy Dani Rodrik has long been skeptical of what he calls "hyperglobalization," or an advanced level of interconnectedness between countries and their economies. He first introduced his theory of the "globalization trilemma" in the late 1990s, which states that no country can simultaneously support democracy, national sovereignty, and global economic integration.
At the time when he proposed his trilemma, Rodrik was considered an outcast. However, economists and policymakers have come to accept his theory as governments seek to address populism, trade imbalances, and uneven growth through renewed interest in industrial policy, or government efforts to improve the performance of key business sectors. Rodrik joins co-hosts Bethany and Luigi to discuss changing attitudes towards globalization: its distributional effects, how it affects politics, and how it is still searching for a narrative consistent between academic circles and the media. Together, the three of them discuss what role corporate America should play in our world restructured by economic and political populism and if economics is getting too far away from the rest of the social sciences when it comes to shaping industrial policy and creating the jobs of tomorrow.
Show Notes:Read Rodrik's co-authored December 2023 paper on the "New Economics of Industrial Policy"
Read an ebook by ProMarket on cutting-edge contemporary debates around industrial policy
In one of this year's bestselling books, "The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing An Epidemic of Mental Illness," New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that today's childhoods spent under the influence of smartphones and overprotective parenting has led to the reported explosion in cases of teenage anxiety and depression. He calls this process a "three-act play": the diminishment of trust in our communities, the loss of a play-based childhood, and the arrival of a hyper-connected world.
Haidt also believes the problem is solvable. On this episode of Capitalisn't, he joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss parenting, learning, adolescence, and in an age where Congress won't act on regulation, his four proposed solutions to break social media's "collective action trap" on children.
But are his solutions feasible? How do we weigh their costs, benefits, limitations, risks, and the roadblocks to their implementation? What are the consequences of an anxious generation for our economy — and what can we really do about it?
Read more about Haidt's work here: https://www.anxiousgeneration.com
And follow his Substack here: https://www.afterbabel.com
If democracy is a social contract, why don’t we allow everybody who is willing to sign it? Why don’t we have open borders for immigration?
In their book "Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success," Princeton University’s Leah Boustan and Stanford University’s Ran Abramitzky provide insights from big data to explore how immigration shaped the United States by looking at the economic legacies of immigrants and their children. On this week’s encore episode, hosts Luigi Zingales and Bethany McLean talk with Boustan to unpack how immigrants and their progeny have impacted jobs, wages, and housing prices for native-born Americans. Conversely, how do immigrants’ countries of origin overcome obstacles to socioeconomic change when many of their most-motivated citizens leave? Can data move the U.S. immigration debate beyond the current border crisis?
In the last 60 years, few economists have contributed more to exposing the failures of capitalism than Joseph Stiglitz. Formerly the chief economist of the World Bank and chair of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for his work showing that the possibility of having different information can lead to inefficient market outcomes.
On this episode of Capitalisn't, Stiglitz joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss his latest book, "The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society" (W.W. Norton, 2024). The book, as Bethany describes it, is a "full frontal attack on neoliberalism" that provides a prospective roadmap towards a more progressive form of capitalism. Together, the three discuss the role of mis- and disinformation in producing market inefficiencies, the importance of regulation, institutional accountability, and collective action in correcting market failures, and the role of neoliberalism in today's global populist uprising. In the process, they underscore the close link between economic and political freedom.
Is the famed American Dream still attainable for the immigrants and working class of today? What made America the land of opportunity — and if it isn't the same anymore, what happened to it?
Joining co-hosts Bethany and Luigi to discuss these questions is David Leonhardt, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of "Ours Was the Shining Future." In his book, Leonhardt describes what he calls today's "rough-and-tumble" capitalism and distinguishes its laissez-faire characteristics from a more bygone, democratic version. Charting shifts in manufacturing, labor power, and the perennial tension between immigration and wages, Leonhardt and our hosts deliberate over the ramifications of this story for progressive and populist movements in a tumultuous election year and offer potential pathways to rekindle the promise of prosperity and upward mobility.
Critics of the food industry allege that it relentlessly pursues profits at the expense of public health. They claim that food companies "ultra-process" products with salt, sugar, fats, and artificial additives, employ advanced marketing tactics to manipulate and hook consumers, and are ultimately responsible for a global epidemic of health ailments. Companies are also launching entirely new lines and categories of food products catering to diabetes or weight management drugs such as Ozempic.
Marion Nestle, a leading public health advocate, nutritionist, award-winning author, and Professor Emerita at New York University, first warned in her 2002 book "Food Politics" that Big Food deliberately designs unhealthy, addictive products to drive sales, often backed by industry-funded research that misleads consumers. This week on Capitalisn't, Nestle joins Bethany and Luigi to explore the ultra-processed food industry through the interplay of four lenses: the underlying science, business motives, influencing consumer perceptions, and public policy.
Over the last few weeks, university politics has captured headlines as students across the country occupy sections of their campuses and demand that their schools divest from Israel in protest of its contentious war in Gaza. Last week for Compact Magazine, Luigi and Nobel Laureate Oliver Hart stressed that one lesson from these protests is that universities need to make transparent their investment strategies and how they contribute to the school’s financial operations, including financial aid.
Increased transparency can inform ethical debates about divestment, but can it solve them? Even if students get what they want, will it matter? Or should they be focusing their efforts elsewhere to maximize impact? Who gets to make the decisions about the ethics of college endowment investments, and how should votes be divided between different stakeholders — students, faculty, alumni, and donors? This week on Capitalisn’t, Bethany and Luigi record a late-breaking episode tackling these foundational questions that underlie the governance of today's universities.
The meteoric rise of private credit over the last decade has raised concerns among banks about unfair competition and among regulators about risks to financial stability.
Historically, regulated banks have provided most of the credit that finances businesses in the United States. However, since the 2008 financial crisis, banks have restricted their credit lines in response to new regulations. In their place has arisen private credit, which comprises direct (and mostly unregulated) lending, primarily from institutional investors. Estimates peg the current size of outstanding private credit loans in the U.S. at $1.7 trillion.
Private credit loans aren't traceable, and there are incentives to lend to riskier borrowers in the absence of regulation. This could lead to catastrophic spillover effects in the event of a financial shock. This week, Bethany and Luigi sit down with Jim Grant, a longtime market and banking industry analyst, writer, and publisher of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, a twice-monthly journal of financial markets published since 1983. Together, they try to answer if private credit is in the public interest.
"The only true aging is the erosion of one's ideals," says Ralph Nader, the former third-party presidential candidate who just turned 90 after more than 60 years of consumer advocacy and fighting for small business in America. From influencing the transformative passage of car safety legislation to advancing numerous environmental protection and public accountability causes, Nader has fought against the proliferation and insinuation of corporate power in our government.
In between all of that, Nader has also found the time to develop a prolific writing career. In this week’s episode, Nader joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss his new book, "Rebellious CEO: 12 Leaders Who Got It Right." The three talk about the possibilities of ethically profitable business, Nader’s lifelong pursuit of justice, his views on the state of capitalism today, the political disillusionment of the public, and how we can reclaim democratic control of capitalism.
Given the recent mass layoffs, acceleration of media consolidation, continued decline of local journalism, and rapid uptake of generative AI, the news industry—fundamental to institutional accountability in capitalist democracies—appears to be in deep crisis. Joining Bethany and Luigi to make the case that journalism can not only survive but thrive is Ben Smith, longtime journalist, former New York Times media columnist, co-founder of global digital news publication Semafor, and the author of "Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral."
How much of today's state of journalism can be attributed to mistakes and how much to inevitability? Where does the marriage between social media and news go next? How can journalism remain financially viable? Offering a nuanced perspective on the opportunities and pitfalls facing the news industry today, the three of them discuss the future of journalism in the age of clicks and a path back to a media landscape that informs, educates, and holds power to account.
Perhaps the biggest evidence that capitalism in America doesn’t work, at least not for everyone, is growing income inequality and the persistence of poverty. But what is the current state of poverty and inequality in the United States? Why do debates still persist about whether poverty has been eradicated? What do the numbers and official statistics tell us, and should we believe them? What do personal stories and experiences with poverty tell us that data cannot? If poverty has indeed been eradicated, what led to that achievement – and if it still persists, what more can be done to abolish it?
Last year on this podcast, we did a series about this topic, and we found these episodes to be surprising and more informative than most of the debates about poverty you’ll hear on the news. So, we wanted to condense that series down into a single episode that captures all of the highlights. The first speaker is former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX), who argues in his recent book, "The Myth of American Inequality," that poverty is vastly overstated because official government data does not include transfer payments. The second is Princeton sociologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Matthew Desmond, who argues in his recent book, "Poverty, by America," that poverty is a terrible scourge, that we have made no progress, and that it is a moral outrage.
The result is a nuanced, surprising, and informative debate on a multifaceted but important issue – leaving our hosts, as well as, by extension, our listeners – to formulate their own takeaways on what we can all do about them.
Episode notes:
In his recent book, "The Problem of Twelve: When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything," Harvard law professor John Coates sheds light on the secrecy, lack of public accountability, concentrated power, and the disproportionate influence of a select few institutions in our financial system.
Coates joins Bethany and Luigi to dissect the potential dangers of this era of financial consolidation and explore possible solutions, including accountability and transparency, to ensure a more equitable economic system. Specifically examining the "Big Four" index funds (Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, and BlackRock) — that collectively hold more than twenty percent of the votes in S&P 500 companies — and the transformative rise of private equity funds, they discuss the challenges posed by concentrated financial power and its impact on markets, economies, and society at large.
Show Notes:
The Wall Street Journal wrote that “Wall Street's best-known bear is going into hibernation" after the legendary short seller Jim Chanos announced he would close his main hedge funds late last year, in part due to diminishing interest in stock picking. Short selling, which bets on drops in asset prices, wins when companies and governments fail and has gained a predatory reputation over the years. Just last week, the China Securities Regulatory Commission vowed "zero tolerance" against what they called "malicious short sellers," according to Reuters.
One of our listeners wrote to Bethany with this question: “What does it say about capitalism if Jim Chanos can’t find enough investors willing to profit from its frauds, fads, and failures, not to mention the competitive forces that are necessary for a functioning market? Is short selling dead?” To discuss this, Luigi and Bethany sat down with Chanos himself, who has been cast as the “Darth Vader of Wall Street,” the “Catastrophe Capitalist,” and the “LeBron James of short selling.” Together, they discuss the relationship between short sellers and our information environment, the fallout from the "meme stock" craze, the effects of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policies, and how short selling can contribute to market efficiency and resilience. Do short sellers play a positive role by uncovering corporate fraud, mismanagement, and systemic risks? What safeguards are necessary to prevent short-selling abuse and ensure fair and transparent markets?
According to the latest industry statistics, the global influencer economy grew from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $21.1 billion in 2023 — and it's only expected to grow exponentially from here with advances in artificial intelligence. In 1988, Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman investigated how mass media sways audiences to conform to social norms without coercion, or what they called “manufacturing consent.” In her new book, “The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media,” Dr. Emily Hund investigates how social media influencers have manufactured a new media economy to which we’ve unwittingly consented.
Hund, a research affiliate at the Center on Digital Culture and Society at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, joins Bethany and Luigi to unpack this new digital landscape where influence has become a powerful currency, shaping not only news consumption and consumer behavior but the very fabric of modern capitalism. Together, they discuss whether influencers are empowered entrepreneurs rewriting market rules or victims of a system that commodifies identity. What are the hidden incentives driving influencer messaging and, thus, the news and content we receive?
Read an excerpt from Hund's book (Princeton University Press, 2023) on ProMarket.
It's been nearly 16 years since the federal government bailed out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion in response to the financial crisis that precipitated the Great Recession. The idea that the public must guarantee critical financial institutions that are “too big to fail” was controversial then, but does it still remain an issue? Stanford finance professor Anat Admati, whom the New York Times profiled in an article titled "When She Talks, Banks Shudder," argues it’s become worse.
Admati joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss the updated edition of her and Martin Hellwig’s book, The Bankers' New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do About It. Dissecting new financial developments, including the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, the crypto industry, and shadow banking, Admati lays bare how the current financial system is rigged for the benefit of the few. She also prescribes how we can build and regulate a fairer and more accountable financial system and, thus, a more stable and equitable capitalist economy.
Show Notes:
After two seasons and 163 episodes, Capitalisn’t hosted its first-ever live event late last year. As part of the University of Chicago Podcast Festival, co-host Luigi Zingales fielded questions from three UChicago undergraduate students — Surya Gowda, Mete Bakircioglu, and Giuseppe Di Cera —and an in-person audience in an “Ask Me Anything.”
From the evolution of competition policy to the impact of greener energy sources on prices, from the challenges of regulating the shadow economy to Luigi's struggles with his favorite soccer team, here is our “Ask Me Anything” episode.
If you wish to submit your own question for our forthcoming mailbag episode, please do so here. https://www.speakpipe.com/Capitalisnt
The firing, and subsequent rehiring, of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman raises fundamental questions about whose interests are relevant to the development of artificial intelligence and how these interests should be weighed if they hinder innovation. How should we govern innovation, or should we just not govern it at all? Did capitalism "win" in the OpenAI saga?
Bethany and Luigi sit down with Luigi’s colleague Sendhil Mullainathan, a professor of Computation and Behavioral Science at Chicago Booth. Together, they discuss if AI is really "intelligent" and whether a profit motive is always bad. In the process, they shed light on what it means to regulate in the collective interest and if we can escape the demands of capitalism when capital is the very thing that's required for progress.
After discussing the trajectory of China's economy earlier this year, Luigi and Bethany turn their attention to the future of another global economic behemoth: India. Joining them is renowned Indian economist Raghuram Rajan, who has a brand-new book out this week, "Breaking the Mould: Reimagining India's Economic Future" (co-authored with Rohit Lamba).
In "Breaking the Mould," Rajan and Lamba make the controversial and counterintuitive argument that India should follow an economic development path that is based not on manufacturing, as China has done, but rather on services. In this conversation, we discuss why India's strengths play to services-based development, how India can deal with the economic and educational inequality created by its past, how Western business should engage with India, and why democracy is critical to India's future economic success.
We think his perspectives are important for Indian citizens and policymakers, but also for global citizens and policymakers given the critical role India will play in shaping the world of the future.
After previously exploring the worlds of 'consultants for sale' and 'scientists for sale,' Luigi and Bethany turn their attention to another broken system of 'enablers' - the world of lawyers for sale. With award-winning investigative journalist David Enrich, they discuss David's latest book, "Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice."
Enrich presents several case studies showing how 'Big Law' firms have used their wealth and influence to capture the justice system, serving the interests of their wealthy clients at the expense of ordinary Americans. With Bethany and Luigi, he discusses: How can we restore the integrity of our legal institutions? What are the broader implications for the rule of law in a society dominated by economic and political interests?
Show Notes - also revisit:
In his new book "Number Go Up," Bloomberg News investigative reporter Zeke Faux takes readers on a wild ride through the world of cryptocurrency, from its origins in the dark corners of the internet, its meteoric rise to mainstream popularity, and finally its equally precipitous fall.
A few days after the 'convicted' verdict in the trial of beleaguered crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), Faux joins Bethany and Luigi to make a case for why we should judge cryptocurrency by what it has done and not what it can do. They discuss whether it is too soon to write crypto off, what larger commentary it offers about capitalism, and why Luigi, who teaches a popular MBA course on fintech, feels "crypto is money that can only be created by computer scientists who don't understand history."
Show Notes: Revisit a 2017 Stigler Center mini-course by NYU Stern Professor David Yermack on the potential implications of blockchain technologies on the future of finance.
In his new book, Sohrab Ahmari argues that the concentration of economic power in the hands of a few corporations has created a new form of tyranny in America. "Coercion is far more widespread in supposedly noncoercive societies than we would like to think—provided we pay attention to private power and admit the possibility of private coercion," he writes.
Ahmari, founder and editor of Compact magazine, joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss his book, "Tyranny Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty--and What to Do About It." In this episode, they discuss the complex relationship between capitalism, personal freedoms, and political power. The conversation sheds light on what classical liberalism ignores, how today's Right is discovering what the Left may have forgotten, and ultimately, where today's political Left and Right may be able to work together.
Show Notes: Also check out two previous episodes mentioned in this conversation:
In her brand new book, "The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind," Bethany and her co-author Joe Nocera argue that the COVID-19 pandemic was not simply a natural disaster but also a man-made one.
Based on rigorous research and compelling storytelling, Bethany, who is renowned for her incisive reporting, reveals uncomfortable truths that have emerged from the pandemic about capitalism, inequality, and corporate power. In this one-on-one conversation with Luigi, she dissects the policies, decisions, and systemic structures that exacerbated the pandemic's fallout for the most vulnerable in society, shedding light on who benefited and who was left to fend for themselves.
How does science become public policy? It's not always as straightforward as it might seem. In his book "The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception," leading public health expert and former Clinton/Obama administration official David Michaels shows how corporate interests often "manufacture uncertainty" in order to protect their profits. Using wide-ranging case studies from Big Tobacco, Volkswagen, American football, and talcum-based baby powder, Michaels exposes the disinformation playbook deployed by corporate-funded science to sow "doubt, denial, delay, distraction, deflection, and defense." With him, Bethany and Luigi discuss how we can fight back against manipulated science and replace the triumph of doubt with the triumph of truth.
Show Notes: Also, check out our previous episode on the "Capitalisn't of Consulting" and the case of McKinsey, mentioned by Luigi in this episode.
In his new book, Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future, renowned political philosopher Patrick Deneen argues that the liberal ideology that has shaped capitalism for centuries has also failed to deliver on its promises of freedom, equality, and prosperity. Is he able to offer a compelling alternative that serves the interests of the common good over those of wealthy elites?
Deneen, whose previous book "Why Liberalism Failed" was acclaimed by the likes of former U.S. President Obama, joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss his proposed 'Regime Change' and its implications for capitalism and the market economy. Can his vision of a postliberal future offer a more just and sustainable economic system, one that addresses the pressing challenges of our time? Can we have progress without progressivism?
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:
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:
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:
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
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.
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:
"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:
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/
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.
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.
In his new book, "Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity", renowned MIT Professor of Economics Daron Acemoglu (with co-author Simon Johnson) argues that the benefits from technological progress are shaped by the distribution of power in society.
In this episode, Acemoglu joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss the key challenges of ensuring that this progress benefits everyone, not just the wealthy and powerful. They discuss the rules, norms, and expectations around technology governance, the unintended consequences of AI development, and how the mismanagement of property rights, especially over data, can reinforce inequality and exploitation.
Show Notes:
On this episode, our hosts Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales sit down with renowned MIT economist David Autor to discuss the impact of technology, labor markets, and immigration on wage inequality and the economy at large. Autor is best known for his work on the "China Shock," the impact of rising Chinese exports on manufacturing employment in the United States and Europe after China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. His most recent work sheds light on which groups have seen the largest nominal wage gains during the COVID recovery, the connections between wage growth and inflation, and more. Autor discusses how advances in technology have disrupted traditional labor markets, how to make better policy choices about the future of work, and the challenges and benefits of immigration in a globalized economy.
Show Notes:
Revisit our conversation with R. Glenn Hubbard, which is referenced in the interview with David Autor
Read the Autor's paper discussed in the episode here.
It is hard to think of an idea more central to capitalism than economics, particularly economic efficiency. Similarly, public policy is now — and has been for a while — conducted in the language of budgets, models, and cost-benefit analyses. But how accountable is this idea to the public?
Elizabeth Popp Berman is a sociologist and historian of economic thought at the University of Michigan and the author of the new book "Thinking Like An Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy." In this episode, she joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss this history of economics as a pervasive influence in the halls of political power in Washington and the challenges of believing in economic models as "truth" in an increasingly complex world. Using case studies in health care, debt forgiveness, pandemic economic recovery, and beyond, the three of them debate whether there are spheres of public and political life where economics has overstepped its bounds and if it belongs there altogether.
Several questions continue to swirl around the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and its larger implications. In this special episode, Chicago Booth’s Raghuram Rajan – former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and IMF Chief Economist – joins Bethany and Luigi to explore the risks in the financial system and possible solutions.
Rajan discusses a paper he presented (with NYU Professor Viral Acharya) at the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole conference in 2022, arguing that the Fed’s liquidity provision left the financial sector more sensitive to shocks, and suggesting that the expansion and shrinkage of central bank balance sheets involves tradeoffs between monetary policy and financial stability. Together with the hosts, Rajan discusses the path forward on inflation, given economic and political pressures, and his recommendations on how to manage risks and tradeoffs.
We had initially prepared an entirely different episode for today, but last week's Silicon Valley Bank collapse, the largest in U.S. history since 2008, meant a quick change of plans.
What happened? What is unique about this bank run, and what isn't? How much should regulators be blamed, and how much should bank management be? Do social media and today's frantic digital environment mean this is the end of banking as we know it?
Luigi and Bethany talk to two experts with unique insights into the crisis: Chicago Booth Professor Douglas Diamond, who won the 2022 Nobel Prize for his decades-long work on bank runs, and Eric Rosengren, former Boston Fed President, for his view as a regulator. They discuss the factors that led to the collapse, including risky lending practices, lack of oversight, and the challenges of regulating the rapidly evolving world of banking. They also explore the broader implications of the collapse, including the impact on the broader financial system and the role of regulation in promoting financial stability.
Show Notes:
Revisit:
Read the following articles in ProMarket:
Also, check out relevant past Capitalisn't episodes:
Read the following articles in ProMarket:
Also, check out relevant past Capitalisn't episodes:
Show notes:
Capitalisn't will be back in your feeds with a brand new episode on January 19. Don't forget to rate and review our podcast if you haven't already, and leave us a voicemail at https://www.speakpipe.com/Capitalisnt.
Read an excerpt from the book here: https://www.promarket.org/2022/10/03/why-streaming-doesnt-pay/
[Show Notes: During the episode, Luigi mentions the paper of a Stigler Center Fellow. Here is a ProMarket piece describing this research in further detail: https://www.promarket.org/2022/11/10/the-economics-of-content-moderation-on-social-media/]
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, we've discussed its many aspects but we haven't talked to anyone actually in or from the country. On this episode, we do both. Ukrainian economist Tymofiy Mylovanov is the president of the Kyiv School of Economics, advisor to the Zelensky administration, and former Ukrainian Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture.
Mylovanov shares what has and hasn't surprised him about the war, reveals Russia’s other strategic advantages beyond energy resources, and offers a game theoretical approach to understanding the potential outcomes of this conflict. Along the way, he laments the cost of human lives as the price for democracy, and encourages us to remember history’s lessons.
Please consider supporting the humanitarian aid campaign of the Kyiv School of Economics Charitable Foundation at Mylovanov's institution: https://kse.ua/we-save-lives/
Emmanuel Saez is probably one of the most controversial economists around these days. Recently, he's garnered significant attention for being one of the architects of Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax proposal. On this episode, Luigi and Kate dig into tax policy, the wealth tax and why Saez's work is so controversial.
Many are praising a recent Business Roundtable announcement that corporations should serve stakeholders as well as shareholders. On the surface, this may seem like a historic reversal of the status quo that has held since Milton Friedman's famous "shareholder primacy" theory was put forward in the 70s. But it's not that simple.
On this episode, Kate and Luigi layout the history of this theory, revealing that it's really been around for as long as we've been asking the most fundamental question in business: what is the purpose of a corporation? They explore that question, and interrogate the possible underlying motives behind the Business Roundtable's decision.
Are stock buybacks evil? A lot of politicians seem to think so. Senators Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer wrote an op-ed in the New York Times this year calling for a limit on corporate buybacks. On this episode, Kate and Luigi break down what stock buybacks really are, how long they've been around, and whether we should ban them.
If you've been paying attention to Andrew Yang's Democratic presidential campaign, you're probably familiar with the concept of universal basic income. On this episode, Kate and Luigi give the economic outlook on how a UBI might work, or not work, and investigate how automation and techno-anxiety are driving the conversation.
With Democratic presidential candidates making the student debt crisis one of the central issues of the 2020 race, Kate and Luigi give an in-depth economics look at the ideas of free college tuition and debt forgiveness, explain the history of how we got to into this student debt crisis, and debate some solutions for how to get out of it.
Last episode, Kate and Luigi discussed how the patent system creates a temporary monopoly designed to make the incentives to innovate. But the real question is does the patent system, and our entire system of intellectual property for that matter, actually accomplish that goal? We start to answer that question by investigating one of the most powerful figures in intellectual property...Mickey Mouse.
After our series about the dangers of monopolies, we're going to investigate a situation in which the government actually works to create monopolies on purpose: the patent system. On the first of two episodes, Luigi and Kate examine whether our current patent system is helping or hurting capitalism.
In part three of our series investigating how digital platforms like Facebook and Google should be regulated, Tyler Cowen from George Mason University argues to Kate and Luigi that more regulation may not be the answer to all our questions about digital platforms.
In part two of our series investigating how digital platforms like Facebook and Google should be regulated, Kate and Luigi dissect the ways these companies interact with our political system by speaking with Nolan McCarty, Susan Dod Brown Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton University.
As digital platforms like Facebook and Google become globally powerful, some countries are investigating and even proposing legislation to regulate these companies. Building off a conference happening at the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago, Kate and Luigi speak with Fiona Scott Morton, a Professor of Economics at Yale, to interrogate these platforms from a traditional market structure perspective.
With Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren proposing wealth taxes, Kate and Luigi break down how these taxes have or haven't worked in other countries and whether they could work in America.
There’s an acronym you’ve probably heard in the news a lot lately: IPO. With companies like Pinterest, Airbnb and UBER all considering going public this year, Kate and Luigi break down why these companies already have huge valuations, and whether rich people have an unfair advantage when it comes to investing.
Last year Elizabeth Warren proposed the controversial Accountable Capitalism Act. One of its most talked about proposals was focused on "codetermination." Kate & Luigi explain how it works, its effectiveness and examine one country that's been trying it out since the 1950s.
In the wake of a blocked merger between the German and French rail giants Siemens and Alstom, Kate & Luigi debate the role of global antitrust regulators. How do they protect consumers while also helping domestic companies compete with state-supported rivals from China?
Are millennials giving up on capitalism? A recent survey found a majority now prefer socialism. Luigi gets the scoop from our resident millennial, Kate, who says most simply want European-style social welfare, student-loan debt relief and campaign finance reform. Is that really so radical?
In our second episode on pollution, investigative journalist Carey Gillam joins Kate and Luigi to discuss her new book "Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science." Gillam reveals how pesticide companies secretly influence scientific research and avoid EPA regulations.
In the first of a two-part series on pollution, Kate and Luigi discuss the health hazards and economic costs of air pollution and contaminated drinking water from the toxic chemical PFOA (C8) found in Teflon. How did DuPont skirt regulation and avoid corporate responsibility for so long?
As Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) jumps into the 2020 Presidential race, Kate and Luigi examine her legislative record and economic policy proposals, including several bold ideas to reform American capitalism.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steven Pearlstein drops by to talk with Kate & Luigi about the incredible shrinking newspaper -- especially the business section -- and why that's bad for the economy. His new book "Can American Capitalism Survive?" argues that the mantra of “maximizing shareholder value” ultimately caused Americans to lose faith in the free market.
Fahmi Quadir thinks short sellers get a bad rap. Known as the "financial assassin" for helping expose fraud and misconduct at Valeant, she tells Luigi that Tesla might be next. But Kate isn't convinced -- she thinks journalists and regulators are the real heroes.
In the second of a two-part look at global inequality Kate & Luigi talk about the downside of globalization. A listener's email sparks a conversation about what's driving the growing wage gap within the U.S. We survey the latest research on the lingering effects of the 'China Shock' and debate how to reverse the trend before the people revolt.
In the first of a two-part look at global inequality Kate & Luigi talk about the upside of globalization -- a decrease in income inequality between countries over the last few decades. How much of this can be attributed to China, and what was the secret to their success?
Yascha Mounk talks with Kate & Luigi about his new book "The People Vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It." Recorded in front of a live audience, the conversation touches on recent populist uprisings and the extent to which they threaten liberal democracy.
Populism strikes again as the world's 4th largest democracy is set to elect controversial right-wing politician Jair Bolsonaro as its next leader. Writer and lawyer Glenn Greenwald (now living in Brazil) tells Kate & Luigi how rampant corruption, violent crime and a struggling economy have given rise to yet another populist movement.
In our third and final episode on the 2008 financial crisis, Kate & Luigi look at recent volatility in the markets and try to predict the cause of the next financial crash with help from prominent economists Robert Shiller and Lawrence Summers.
Join us for a live taping of Capitalisn't on October 8 at the Union League Club in Chicago! Author Yascha Mounk will discuss his latest book, The People vs. Democracy, with co-hosts Luigi Zingales and Kate Waldock. Click here for details and free tickets! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-people-vs-democracy-with-yascha-mounk-katherine-waldock-and-luigi-zingales-tickets-49992656381
The second in a 3-part series on the 2008 financial crisis. In the weeks after the crash Luigi remembers petitioning the government for a better bank bailout. Looking back, he and Kate review everything from TARP to Dodd-Frank to see how we averted a worse recession. But did some CEOs get away with fraud?
The first in a 3-part series on the 2008 financial crisis. Kate tells Luigi about being an intern at Lehman Brothers when it collapsed and then we debate the causes including subprime mortgages, investor fraud and an ill-advised speech from former President George W. Bush.
Economists experience their first major #MeToo moment. Kate and Luigi explore the larger implications of a recent case involving a Columbia University professor who was found liable for retaliation against a female junior faculty member.
Our third and final episode on antitrust law looks at the E.U.'s recent $5 billion fine against Google. Kate and Luigi hear about double-sided markets from Nobel-winning economist Jean Tirole and explore the E.U. vs. U.S. approach to antitrust enforcement.
The second in a special 3-part series on antitrust law. Kate and Luigi talk with Lina Khan, author of the article “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” and a member of the New Brandeis Movement, which believes that antitrust enforcement should be more broadly applied and not just rely on consumer welfare.
The first in a special 3-part series on antitrust law. In the wake of the approved merger between giants AT&T and Time Warner, Kate and Luigi talk with a leading expert, Carl Shapiro, about the evolving concept of consumer welfare and whether antitrust law needs to change with the times.
Do central bankers have too much power? Paul Tucker, a former official at the Bank of England during the 2008 financial crisis and author of the new book 'Unelected Power,' explains to Kate and Luigi how technocratic hubris can imperil democracy.
Should a kidney be sold to the highest bidder? Luigi and Kate debate Nobel-winning economist Al Roth whose algorithm for kidney transplants has saved more than 6000 lives. Roth says matching markets could be used for everything from online dating to the global refugee crisis.
Why was Steve Bannon in Rome last week? Luigi and Kate look at the recent formation of Italy's populist government and analyze Bannon's attempt to forge a similar left-right coalition in the U.S. uniting supporters of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google and “the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience,” warns Kate & Luigi about targeted digital advertising that creates individual, orchestrated experiences dictated by nothing more than an algorithm.
As ad revenue continues to decline more and more news organizations are turning to paid and sponsored content. Luigi and Kate revisit the decades-old music payola scandal and debate how to ensure proper disclosure in the digital age.
In the brave new world of cryptocurrency the latest frenzy involves Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), which make Bitcoin look tame by comparison. Luigi and Kate explore this volatile, largely unregulated market and consider creating their own ICO.
‘Quitaly.’ ‘Italeave.’ Whatever you call it, Italy’s recent election results are stoking fears that the once staunch supporter of the EU may be the next country to exit. Kate asks Luigi, our resident Italian expert, how we got here and why it matters.
10 years after dark pools of derivatives contributed to the Great Recession, former Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Sharon Bowen tells Kate & Luigi how she helped bring transparency to the market and visited a few grain silos along the way.
The U.S. economy may be booming, but despite a recent uptick wage growth remains stubbornly flat. Kate & Luigi examine the effect of monopsonies in the labor market among concentrated industries like Big Tech. Are companies colluding against workers and driving down wages?
Are doctors and pharmaceutical companies to blame for the opioid epidemic? Kate & Luigi look at the role of supply and demand in fueling the distribution of prescription painkillers, and discuss the regulatory ramifications for medical marijuana.
Are elite MBA programs producing morally bankrupt administrators? Duff McDonald, author of “The Golden Passport,” tries to convince Luigi & Kate that conflicts of interest and flawed case studies amount to an unethical education that harms society.
Five years after Thomas Piketty’s surprise bestseller captured the zeitgeist of an anxious age, Kate and Luigi revisit the book to see how it holds up in the current political and economic climate. The verdict? Intriguing analysis, but limited impact.
It’s been 6 years since a member of the Federal Reserve improperly leaked information to an analyst. Kate & Luigi wonder what's really changed. Is the Fed still too cozy with big banks, the media and others with a financial stake in monetary policy?
As college enrollment goes up, social mobility continues its 50-year decline. Luigi and Kate look for answers in the latest research on the role of higher education. Are today’s universities engines of social mobility or simply bastions of privilege?
Luigi shops for an airline ticket and ponders how our retirement investments might be hurting our wallets. New research suggests that giant mutual funds with large stakes in the companies of one industry can lead to reduced competition and higher prices.
The new U.S. tax reform bill includes a dramatic reduction in the corporate tax rate. Is this a hand-out to the rich or a necessary measure to spur the U.S. economy in the face of global competition? Luigi and Kate debate the pros and cons and break down the law’s impact on pass-through businesses.
Not long ago Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hinted at a run for political office. Luigi and Kate debate whether a President Zuckerberg would give the social media giant a dangerous monopoly. Should government regulators do something to limit its power?
Luigi and Kate deliberate over the topics that will be discussed on Capitalisn't -- they range from market power to Italian history. Visit us at www.capitalisnt.com to learn more.
En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.