Essay Return to office? How COVID-19 and remote work reshaped the economy May 30, 2023 The last great battle of the COVID-19 pandemic is not over masks or vaccines or big government policies. It’s over remote work. Read More
Essay Can bankers ever be virtuous? May 24, 2023 There are few today who link banking with virtue. The common view is of an industry greedy for profits and far too willing to take risks that, when they go wrong, lead to expensive bail outs using tax-payers’ money while the perpetrators walk away with their bonuses intact. Read More
Essay Why economists—and everyone else—should care about hope April 13, 2023 The U.S. is experiencing a nationwide crisis of despair. Despair is not only linked with premature mortality, but with the vulnerability to misinformation that is plaguing our society, our health systems, and our democracy. Read More
Essay Lessons from the past about the future of capitalism January 02, 2023 The capitalist economic system has delivered wealth to the world population on an unprecedented scale. At the same time, many people feel unhappy about how little the economy does for them. Read More
Essay A time for utopias November 21, 2022 “Generation Dread,” “The World as We Knew It,” or “Global Burning.” This is just a small sample of book titles from this year that deal with global warming and its environmental, socio-economic, political, and cultural consequences. Read More
Essay Playing in the gray October 28, 2022 How do global elites capitalize on risky frontier markets? They master the art of playing in the gray. Read More
Podcast Spiderweb Capitalism October 25, 2022 In 2015, the anonymous leak of the Panama Papers brought to light millions of financial and legal documents exposing how the superrich hide their money using complex webs of offshore vehicles. Read More
Essay Capitalism: The word and the thing October 12, 2022 Capitalism is a word used variously to describe an economic and social system, a modern form of political power, a dynamic mode of production, a stage in a world-historical process running from feudalism to communism, a western object of ideological allegiance, a durable form of inequality or, more simply, a thing. Read More
Essay Taxing the light of heaven June 27, 2022 There is no bloodshed in our last story, but it takes us to the heart of the tax-design problem. This is the tale of the window tax, imposed in Britain from 16971 to 1851. Read More
Interview Hal Weitzman on What’s the Matter with Delaware? May 24, 2022 The legal home to over a million companies, Delaware has more registered businesses than residents. Why do virtually all of the biggest corporations in the United States register there? Why do so many small companies choose to set up in Delaware rather than their home states? Read More
Video PUP Speaks: Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake on correcting economic disappointments March 18, 2022 The past two decades have witnessed sluggish economic growth, mounting inequality, dysfunctional competition, and a host of other ills that have left people wondering what has happened to the future they were promised. Read More
Podcast Listen in: Career and Family November 05, 2021 A century ago, it was a given that a woman with a college degree had to choose between having a career and a family. Today, there are more female college graduates than ever before, and more women want to have a career and family, yet challenges persist at work and at home. Read More
Podcast Listen in: When the Sahara Was Green October 28, 2021 The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world, equal in size to China or the United States. Yet, this arid expanse was once a verdant, pleasant land, fed by rivers and lakes. Read More
Podcast Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity October 21, 2021 Renowned economic historian, Claudia Goldin traces women’s journey to close the gender wage gap and sheds new light on the continued struggle to achieve equity between couples at home. Read More
Interview Claudia Goldin on Career and Family October 15, 2021 A century ago, it was a given that a woman with a college degree had to choose between having a career and a family. Today, there are more female college graduates than ever before, and more women want to have a career and family, yet challenges persist at work and at home. Read More
