Einaudi Center for International Studies
The Interim Balance Sheet of Democracy: A Machiavellian Memo
This paper discusses the “global economy of anger” and the “great discordance” that has been the collateral offshoot of technological progress and globalization. It shows that what is often overlooked is that these “advances” have been slowly eroding the foundations of global democracy, enabling political leaders in big and powerful countries to take actions that have no legitimacy or legal basis and are sanctioned by none other than themselves, which is anathema to the very idea of democracy.
Paper
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Type
- Paper
- CRADLE Law and Economics Papers
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Publication Year: 2019
The Third Function of Law Is to Transform Cultural Categories
How does law change society? In the rational actor model, law affects behavior only by changing incentives and information—the command and coordination function of law. Under the view that humans are social animals, law is also a guidepost for social norms that regulate behavior—the expressive function of law.
Paper
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Type
- Paper
- CRADLE Law and Economics Papers
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Publication Year: 2019
Politics, Markets, and Governance in Africa
May 1, 2025
Conference on May 8-9
In honor of our colleague Nicolas van de Walle (1957-2024), the Institute for African Development is cohosting a conference on African politics.
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New Technology and Increasing Returns: The End of the Antitrust Century?
The advance of digital technology is changing the nature of markets, enhancing the capacity of corporations to extract more consumers’ surplus and lower the wages paid to workers. The rise of new technology has also diminished the efficacy of traditional laws to regulate firms and corporations. This is best illustrated by antitrust laws. With the new technology, there are greater returns to scale in production, and further, it is possible to have different components of the same final good be produced by different firms in faraway places.
White Paper
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Type
- White Paper
- CRADLE White Paper Series
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Publication Year: 2019
What the Federal Reserve Got Totally Wrong about Inflation and Interest Rate Policy: Getting Real About Rents
Since the beginning of 2019, the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) has begun to reconsider the wisdom of having increased its overnight policy interest rate by 100 basis point during the course of 2018, after increasing it by 75 basis points the year before. The FOMC has sent signals, with regard to its prospective actions this year, that are substantially more dovish than the guidance it delivered in 2018. The Fed’s motives may include some soft economic data and severe reversals in equity markets and long term interest rates during the last weeks of 2018, but it is clear that the FOMC’s approach to the policy rate in 2019 will be data dependent and far less dogmatic.
White Paper
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Type
- White Paper
- CRADLE White Paper Series
Publication Details
Publication Year: 2019
An Attack on America’s Universities Is an Attack on American Power
April 29, 2025
How Academia Bolsters National Security
Sarah Kreps (PACS) writes that loss of government support for academic research will cause the U.S. to “sacrifice its advantage in innovation.”
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Is the World Going to Deglobalize?
April 22, 2025
Eswar Prasad, SAP
Eswar Prasad, senior professor of international trade policy, discusses the future of globalization.
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On Major Economic Decisions, Trump Blinks, and Then Blinks Again
April 23, 2025
Nicholas Mulder, IES/PACS
Nicholas Mulder, assistant professor of history, discusses the history of Trump's imposition of tariffs on China.
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Global Economic Leaders Gathering in U.S. Confront Trump’s New World Order
April 22, 2025
Eswar Prasad, SAP
New article quoting Eswar Prasad
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Panama Accepted Asylum-seekers the US Didn’t Want. Then its Troubles Began.
April 21, 2025
Ian Kysel, Migrations
Ian Kysel, associate clinical professor of law, says “It’s appropriate for states to collaborate on how to respond to migration. But the first principle of that has to be to ensure that the rights of all migrants are protected.”