Money, Finance, & Trade – LPE Project https://lpeproject.org The Law and Political Economy Project Mon, 23 Jun 2025 04:19:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 https://lpeproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-LPE_Favicon_512px_BlackBG-450x450.png Money, Finance, & Trade – LPE Project https://lpeproject.org 32 32 State Capitalist Mutations Under Trump 2.0 https://lpeproject.org/blog/state-capitalist-mutations-under-trump-2-0/ Mon, 23 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000 https://lpeproject.org/?p=11655 Global capitalism is undergoing turbulent mutations, including the seemingly unstoppable rise of Big Tech and the aggressive reengineering of globalization to intensifying geopolitical rivalries. The supercharged business and political news cycle is moving at an ever more dizzying pace. In this context, many of us are seeking intellectual resources to help us understand the specificity and...

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]]> Some of the Best New LPE and LPE-Adjacent Scholarship https://lpeproject.org/blog/some-of-the-best-new-lpe-and-lpe-adjacent-scholarship-2/ Thu, 22 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000 https://lpeproject.org/?p=11591 With summer just around the corner, are you looking to indulge in some juicy, page-turning scholarship? As always, the Blog has you covered. So throw those Capri-Suns in a cooler, grab your favorite e-reader, and load up some of our favorite forthcoming LPE and LPE-adjacent articles for your next trip to the beach, park, or (let’s be real) library. ** ** ** Sahil Agrawal, Melissa Barber...

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]]> Reckoning with the Reckoning in Higher Ed https://lpeproject.org/blog/reckoning-with-the-reckoning-in-higher-ed/ Tue, 13 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000 https://lpeproject.org/?p=11539 The Trump administration has launched a wholesale ideological and fiscal attack on higher education, holding federal funds hostage while demanding a ransom in the way of wide-ranging curricular and disciplinary changes. At the time of this writing, Columbia University has capitulated to its recent shakedown, but Harvard’s recent refusal to follow suit has inspired other institutions to speak out...

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]]> On Tariffs and the Ends of International Economic Law https://lpeproject.org/blog/on-tariffs-and-the-ends-of-international-economic-law/ Tue, 29 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 https://lpeproject.org/?p=11541 These days, I often find myself thinking about Thornstein Veblen, capitalism’s most astute non-Marxist critic. A progenitor of institutional economics, Veblen is best known for his scathing critique of bourgeois conspicuous consumption: the habit of the newly-enriched capitalist classes to publicly display the goods and services purchased through their ever-expanding discretionary income as a way...

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]]> Offshore Financial Law as Freedom-Promoting? https://lpeproject.org/blog/offshore-financial-law-as-freedom-promoting/ Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 https://lpeproject.org/?p=11322 This post concludes a mini-series on the invisibilized power of trusts in modern financial capitalism. Read the rests of the posts here. *** In mainstream American discourse, offshore financial centers are generally conceived of as sources of scandal. For example, the Panama Papers, the Pandora Papers, and the Paradise Papers revealed companies and wealthy individuals concealing their assets and...

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]]> The Not-So-Secret Lives of Trusts https://lpeproject.org/blog/the-not-so-secret-lives-of-trusts/ Tue, 11 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 https://lpeproject.org/?p=11295 This post is part of a mini-series on the invisibilized power of trusts in modern financial capitalism. Read the rests of the posts here. *** One common critique of trust law is that it exacerbates wealth inequality by creating layers of financial secrecy for families with substantial assets. By obscuring asset ownership through baroque legal vehicles invented by the “wealth defense industry,”...

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]]> The Anti-Democratic Rise of Super-Property https://lpeproject.org/blog/the-anti-democratic-rise-of-super-property/ Wed, 05 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 https://lpeproject.org/?p=11271 This post kicks off a mini-series on the invisibilized power of trusts in modern financial capitalism. *** This past month, an internationally consequential battle for corporate control over Rupert Murdoch’s media empire was resolved by what might seem an unlikely decision-maker — a Nevada probate commissioner. Even more surprisingly, the process lacked any of the usual markers of transparency...

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]]> A Dignity-Based Approach to Debt https://lpeproject.org/blog/a-dignity-based-approach-to-debt/ Thu, 23 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000 https://lpeproject.org/?p=11188 Many Americans have no choice but to take on debt to survive: to access necessary medical care, a basic education, essential transportation, and to cover other basic needs in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. And once they’ve fallen into debt, many find it nearly impossible to claw their way out of it. One out of every three adult Americans has a debt that has been turned over to a...

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]]> How Bankruptcy Prioritizes Property Rights Over Public Good https://lpeproject.org/blog/how-bankruptcy-prioritizes-property-rights-over-public-good/ Thu, 21 Nov 2024 11:00:00 +0000 https://lpeproject.org/?p=10914 What happens when private creditor rights in bankruptcy proceedings pose an existential threat to the operation of a public utility? We may soon find out. The Puerto Rico Electrical Authority (PREPA), a public utility and the only electric utility in Puerto Rico, has been in bankruptcy proceedings since Hurricane María devastated the island seven years ago. And this past June...

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]]> The Role of Coercion in the Neoliberal Economy https://lpeproject.org/blog/the-role-of-coercion-in-the-neoliberal-economy/ Mon, 21 Oct 2024 11:00:00 +0000 https://lpeproject.org/?p=10870 This post concludes a symposium on Melinda Cooper’s Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance. Read the rest of the symposium here. ** ** ** In Melinda Cooper’s narrative of extravagance and austerity in public finance, one of the most powerful organizing forces on austerity-side of the ledger were the taxpayers who rebelled against the U.S. government’s rather modest efforts...

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