Government

When Ben Franklin wrote Poor Richard’s Almanac and the words, “A little neglect may breed great mischief,” he did not have price fixing in mind. To the 47 executives in companies in the folding-box industry convicted of price fixing, however, the words seem tailored to fit. In those companies convicted under antitrust laws in 1976, […]

In many countries, diversified business groups substitute for the institutions that support effective markets in capital, labor, and goods and services. Their capacity for doing this must be strengthened through restructuring, not destroyed through dismantling.

Public-private partnerships are more common in infrastructure, but they offer potential for global health.

AT&T’s recently announced acquisition of T-Mobile will invite hellfire from telecom regulators who fantasize over a different market structure, in which 17 mom-and-pop carriers serve the masses with tender love and care. As an economist, and as a customer of AT&T (with my mom, wife, and oldest daughter on my account), I am not so […]

If we could better track the value of human capital, employees would be better off.

Companies that excel in managing partnerships for innovation put a great deal of effort into im-proving their ability to collaborate. Their plans address...

Is the diversity created by mass migration a good thing for economic growth? To find out, a pair of researchers mobilized a large-scale dataset on international...

How can American industry rebuild the skills and supplier bases required to produce advanced technologies? I am losing confidence that the solution lies in American companies overhauling, unaided, their management practices. A whole generation of managers has been imbued, over a period of more than 20 years, with the supposed virtues of global outsourcing, and […]

A brief history of working parenthood in the United States.

During the worst of all possible weeks for Bear Stearns, CEO Alan Schwartz had the worst of all possible times. Because he presided over one of the most sudden and humiliating meltdowns in American corporate history, his personal performance under pressure came under special scrutiny. Above all there was the question of whether there was […]

Lessons from 18F, a U.S. government digital services office.

In 2014, we still don't know how much an MRI should cost.

Five steps health organizations can take.

For the first 40-plus years of their existence, the federal securities laws did not require or prohibit specific managerial practices in the operation of business, other than a business in one of a handful of closely regulated industries. But with the passage of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, the SEC is equipped to […]

As Afghan-U.S. relations continue to deteriorate, it's hard to imagine that the two nations can find political common ground. But the language of business...

Are you prepared?

In 2013 the genetic testing firm 23andMe received a cease-and-desist letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration forbidding it from selling its...

Sometimes third-party sellers benefit, but sometimes they get crushed.

Last I heard, the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation is focused on granting some $50 million to organizations that have proven to be successful and innovative. Maybe I’m missing something, but isn’t giving money to innovative organizations what hundreds of foundations try to do every year? Using the power of the […]

What an analysis of millions of transactions can tell us.