On September 26, 2024, I was honored to deliver the Eli Heckscher Memorial Lecture at the Stockholm School of Economics. I talked on the the theme of the American corporation in the twentieth cenury. The Heckscher lecture has been given anually since 2003 by a list of distinguished economists, including two Nobel Laureates. It is named in honor of Eli Heckscher (1879-1952), known to most economists for the Heckscher-Ohlin theorem in international trade, who was the founder of economic history in Sweden.

I was pleased to be part of the Janus Forum Lecture Series at Brown University this past Wednesday, April 3.  The topic was the regulation of Big Tech industries, and I was in conversation with Tim Wu, who was President Biden’s special assistant for technology and competition policy.  The lectures were sponsored by the Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Brown.

On September 29, 2023, the Penn Economic History Forum held a symposium on my new book, The Corporation and the Twentieth Century.  The event was well attended, with commentators, both in-person and online, including Brian Cheffins (Cambridge University), Alexander Field (Santa Clara University), Patrick Fridenson (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales), Naomi Lamoreaux (Yale and Michigan), and Laura Phillips Sawyer (Georgia).  I am grateful to my friend Dan Raff for organizing the event.

My new book was recently reviewed in the Financial Times, by Sir Geoffrey Owen, a former editor of the newspaper.

On October 20, I published another op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. I argued that contrary to a widespread meme in antitrust circles, there is little evidence that great antitrust cases of the twentieth century had the salutary effects claimed for them. Markets were in fact shaped by the capabilities and constraints of the firms involved, and they would have evolved in much the same ways had the antitrust suits never been filed. In many cases, antitrust verdicts merely called for actions that firms like IBM were already planning to take.

On October 12, I participated in a fascinating Santa Fe Institute event in New York City.  The topic was “regulation” in its most general sense.  I spoke about the history of government regulation in the U. S.  Perhaps the most interesting talk was by noted venture capitalist Bill Gurley, who talked about regulatory capture.

In September, I attended the annual conference of the World Interdisciplinary Network for Institutional Research in Catania, Sicily, held at the historic Monastero San Benedetto.  I presented a paper on Frank Knight, which was written for a symposium at the Mercatus Center of George Mason University on October 20-21.

 

 

I published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on August 5 about the Big-Tech regulatory commission proposed by Senators Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren. My argument is that historical precedents from the Twentieth Century like the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Communications Commission should give us pause about creating a new intendent regulatory commission.

I just returned from the first annual conference of the Dynamic Competition Initiative, which took place in Florence, Italy.  It was exciting to interact with such a diverse and high-powered group of economists, legal scholars, and practitioners, including competition regulators.