Business power is thought to increase over time when private actors are involved in the provision of public goods and services. This paper argues that this is partially true-and that in certain circumstances, state actors can even swiftly regain control of sectors previously ceded to private...

Argentina has been characterised for a long time by inflation, recession, poverty and failed reforms. We analyse the reforms of Javier Milei with the help of the Austrian School of Economics, German ordoliberalism and the theory of financial repression. It is shown that Milei’s reforms have...

Conventional wisdom suggests that when business regulation is excessive, deregulation should enhance efficiency. The liberalization of services markets in Croatia demonstrates that this is not necessarily the case, particularly when features of the reform process allow undue influence by those...

Conventional wisdom suggests that when business regulation is excessive, deregulation should enhance efficiency. The liberalization of services markets in Croatia demonstrates that this is not necessarily the case, particularly when features of the reform process allow undue influence by those...

The employment share of legal services in the U.S. more than doubled during 1970–1990, in stark contrast to stability during 1850–1970 and after 1990. The relative wage of lawyers and law firm partners also doubled between 1970 and 1990. We argue that this demand shift was driven by...

This paper examines the effects of Argentina's repeal of the rental law in December 2023, one of the most radical housing policy reforms in Latin America in recent decades. Using weekly data for Buenos Aires from 2023-2024 and applying a Regression Discontinuity Design, we provide causal...

This paper examines the effects of Argentina's repeal of the rental law in December 2023, one of the most radical housing policy reforms in Latin America in recent decades. Using weekly data for Buenos Aires from 2023-2024 and applying a Regression Discontinuity Design, we provide causal...

We empirically advocate for UK regulators to increase the volume limit of 15% outstanding shares on open market repurchases. Our main framework initially tests the determinants of share repurchases based on their size, Small, Medium and Large. The findings reveal that consistent with extant...

US Interstate bank deregulation during the 1980s and 1990s led to larger, nationally diversified banks, and a decline in the number of local community banks. Economic theory suggests that community banks may have a greater incentive, but a lower capacity, to lend to a region following a...

We analyze the impact of occupational deregulation on the wages of licensed workers. To do so, we exploit a deregulation policy in the German craft sector that removed the master certificate as a requirement for starting a business in about half of the craft occupations. Specifically, we examine...

We examine the relationship between oil price windfalls and labor market regulation empirically through panel regressions in a sample of 83 countries spanning 1970-2014. We find that oil price windfall gains lead to a deregulation of the labor market in autocracies but have no effects in...

This paper argues that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has outlived the economic and technological conditions that justified its creation. The monopolistic telephone and spectrumscarcity environments of 1934 have been replaced by dynamic, intermodal competition across broadband,...

Sweden's economic growth in relation to developments in the rest of the world exhibits three distinct phases over the past 170 years. From 1890 to 1950, Sweden experienced faster growth than comparable countries. This period of liberalization was followed by a phase of lagging behind until...

The domestic shipping industry has a crucial role in the Philippine economy as it serves as the backbone supporting domestic trade and provides an affordable means of interisland transfer. However, the industry is riddled with inefficiencies with interrelated consequences such as high cost of...

The 2007-08 Global Financial Crisis is a watershed phenomenon that reshaped global capitalism. Stemming from the argument that the Crisis was caused by deregulation, this article assesses to what extent the financial industry influenced the legislative process underlying these reforms. The...

The employment share of legal services in the U.S. more than doubled during 1970–1990, in stark contrast to stability during 1850–1970 and after 1990. The relative wage of lawyers and law firm partners also doubled between 1970 and 1990. We argue that this demand shift was driven by...

Argentina has been characterised for a long time by inflation, recession, poverty and failed reforms. We analyse the reforms of Javier Milei with the help of the Austrian School of Economics, German ordoliberalism and the theory of financial repression. It is shown that Milei's reforms have...

Conventional wisdom suggests that when business regulation is excessive, deregulation should enhance efficiency. The liberalization of services markets in Croatia demonstrates that this is not necessarily the case, particularly when features of the reform process allow undue influence by those...

This paper examines the effects of Argentina's repeal of the rental law in December 2023, one of the most radical housing policy reforms in Latin America in recent decades. Using weekly data for Buenos Aires from 2023–2024 and applying a Regression Discontinuity Design, we provide causal...

This paper examines the effects of Argentina's repeal of the rental law in December 2023, one of the most radical housing policy reforms in Latin America in recent decades. Using weekly data for Buenos Aires from 2023-2024 and applying a Regression Discontinuity Design, we provide causal...

Conventional wisdom suggests that when business regulation is excessive, deregulation should enhance efficiency. The liberalization of services markets in Croatia demonstrates that this is not necessarily the case, particularly when features of the reform process allow undue influence by those...

This paper studies how liberalising outward foreign direct investments (FDI) affects manufacturers’ engagement in global production and their domestic workers’ labor market outcomes. Focusing on a liberalisation policy in 2001 by the government of Taiwan that allowed 122 electronic products...

To boost the European Union's digital economy, the European Commission is seeking to reduce the burden of its digital rulebook. However, the Commission's deregulatory strategy lacks a rigorous, evidence-based analysis of the expected effects entailed by proposed burden reductions, is...

Submarine cables enable international connectivity and are essential for high- speed internet access. This paper examines their impact on internet access price, focusing on price reductions driven by cost savings and competition intensity. Using a dataset of submarine cable capacity and internet...

Electricity sectors in many developing countries are stuck in a vicious cycle of low prices, financial insolvency, and unreliable service. India’s state-owned utilities are emblematic of this problem, costing the government billions in bailouts while delivering poor electricity reliability....

In the last decades, the governance of national electricity systems in Europe has experienced several shifts between market liberalization and policy intervention. However, there remains a lack of consistent evidence about impacts of electricity market governance on the performance of...

This paper investigates the impact of job protection deregulation on firms' productivity, leveraging a size-based cutoff in the eligibility criteria of a pivotal 2014 labor market reform in Italy. The reform replaced reinstatement requirements with a progressive compensation system for unjust...

The US-China direct flights in mid-2023 were only 7 percent of those available in mid-2019. This quasi-experiment informs the debate on air transport de-carbonization. An estimated structural model shows that re-establishing the pre-pandemic direct connectivity could increase passengers by 387...

This paper investigates the impact of services sector liberalization on product innovation of downstream manufacturing firms. Leveraging firm-product panel data from India and employing a shift-share research design, I find that services liberalization significantly increases firms’ product...