Institute for New Economic Thinking

It is inaugural day of the Research in Action Workshop (27–28 April 2026) on the Science of Critical Minerals and the Realigning Global Order. The discussions examine how critical minerals are reshaping industrial policy and global economic alignments.

Research in Action Workshop 2026 The Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) and the Cambridge Central Asia Forum, University of Cambridge, in partnership with The Green Industrial Policy in the Age of Rare Metals: A Transregional Comparison of Growth Strategies in Rare Earth Mining Project (Funded by European Research Council (...

Should antitrust laws focus on low prices today? Or protecting fair competition for tomorrow? INET’s latest research breaks down what’s at stake.

The New Merger Guidelines: Consumer Welfare vs. Protecting Competition Standards Should antitrust law focus primarily on measurable performance outcomes such as price and output as indicated by Robert Bork's Consumer Welfare Standard? Or is it more important to concentrate on whether conduct undermines the competitive process itself as per the newly revitalized Protect Competiti...

The struggle over the Federal Reserve is not just a dispute about central bank independence. The authority to create money flows from the people through their legislature. Concentrating that power in the executive branch allows the potential to steer markets for political ends.

The Fed, Congress, and the President: The Constitutional Authority to Make Money The struggle over the Federal Reserve is not just a dispute about central bank independence. It is a constitutional conflict over democratic sovereignty itself: in a representative system, the power to make money belongs first to the legislature, not the executive.

Following a successful inaugural Meeting of Young Minds in 2024 & 2025, the Third annual Meeting of Young Minds on April 9-11 is geared to be an exciting and engaging gathering of future leaders in the field of economics. Young Scholars Initiative https://www.ineteconomics.org/events/3rd-meeting-of-young-minds-in-frontiers-of-economics

Mind-boggling drug prices and limited access are built into how the global pharma system works. INET’s latest research explores how changing incentives could make innovation work better for patients.

Transforming Corporate Governance to Improve Access to Medicines in the Global South Affordable medicines remain out of reach for millions because pharmaceutical innovation is organized around value extraction, not public health. How do shareholder-driven governance and fragmented global health financing reinforce inequity, and what structural reforms are needed to reverse it?

Big banks are getting thinner cushions. Regulators are calling it reform. But weaker capital rules mean more fragility, more moral hazard, and a return to the logic of too big to fail.

Easing Capital, Reviving Risk: The Quiet Return of Too Big to Fail Less capital, more risk, familiar consequences. The latest move on big-bank rules suggests that too big to fail was never solved, only deferred.

Post-2008 reform was supposed to make the system safer.
So why are regulators now easing capital rules for the largest banks? Pia Malaney looks at the quiet return of too big to fail.

Easing Capital, Reviving Risk: The Quiet Return of Too Big to Fail Less capital, more risk, familiar consequences. The latest move on big-bank rules suggests that too big to fail was never solved, only deferred.

Thomas Ferguson, quoted in Bloomberg on his research with Servaas Storm shows that surging asset prices have made top households “really, really, really rich” leaving the rest of us more vulnerable https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/us-economy-s-strength-hinges-on-how-much-the-rich-spend/ar-AA1YPnBl?ocid=finance-verthp-feeds

Bloomberg features INET research by Thomas Ferguson and Servaas Storm, showing how wealth gains at the top have created a K-shaped economy. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-17/how-k-shaped-us-economy-is-fueling-consumer-spending-debate?srnd=undefined

Should wealth taxes take on corporations before individuals? Dealing with U.S. corporate governance may be the key to the billionaire problem.

Why Chase Taylor Swift? Stop the Corporate Looting That Makes Billionaires. A case for tackling the corporate machinery driving extreme wealth, and the reforms that could truly curb it.

Could California’s wealth tax be missing the real culprit? Instead of chasing individual fortunes, what if the focus shifted to the corporate structures that fuel extreme wealth?

Why Chase Taylor Swift? Stop the Corporate Looting That Makes Billionaires. A case for tackling the corporate machinery driving extreme wealth, and the reforms that could truly curb it.