According to a recent defense of law and economics, contemporary practitioners have abandoned the idea that law should maximize economic efficiency and wealth. To test this claim…

Law and economics offers a portable, teachable procedure that students can learn in a semester and apply across fields. Should LPE aim to develop a rival procedure of its own, or should it aspire to a...

Marc Shkurovich on the case for public pharma, Katharina Pistor on the challenges of social democratic reform, and Yochai Benkler on taking social relations as the basic unit of analysis.

In capitalism, social relations of production exert outsized force on all other domains, distorting and warping relations of reproduction, protection, and meaning-making without fully annihilating…

In recent decades, capitalists have largely succeeded in undermining the state's capacity to act, leaving it too weak to carry out social democratic reforms even with a favorable government in place.

To make medicines more affordable, policymakers are increasingly turning to price controls and out-of-pocket caps. These measures, while lowering costs, leave decisions about which drugs to…

Beatrice speaks with Nate Holdren about how the concept of “gerontocracy” points us away from structural conditions while at the same time r

Dive into what NYC can do to advance affordability for working families during the rise of AI and corporate consolidation.

Jed Purdy discusses law’s role in capitalism, while Megan Wachspress explores how the data center boom risks privatizing the power grid. Plus, Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Gabe Winant on gerontocracy…

To protect customers from rising electricity prices, public officials are urging data center developers to supply their own power. But this approach risks privatizing the power grid…

To protect customers from rising electricity prices, public officials are urging data center developers to supply their own power. But this approach risks privatizing the power grid…

Beatrice speaks with Gabriel Winant about the idea popular in some circles that we live in a “gerontocracy” and whether and how age could be

Yochai Benkler on the dynamics of capitalism and law's role within it, Matthew Dimick on capital and law as social forms, and Matthew Lawrence on administrative law after transsubstantivity. Plus…

Administrative law is often described as “transsubstantive”: in understanding, evaluating, and articulating the rules governing federal agency action across public health, environmental regulation…

Our blog begins from the observation that democratic political processes have lost control over fundamental decisions about how resources are allocated in our society.

New York City has long failed to provide enough public toilets. The Mamdani administration has the tools to change that.

Where do profits come from? And how does law legitimate capitalism? To make progress on these questions, we must dig deeper into the nature of capital and the idea of the legal form.

Understanding law's role in producing the imperatives of capitalism and the relative power of those who occupy different roles in production allows us to identify reforms capable of transforming the…

Sameer Ashar on the potential transformation of the U.S. immigration system, Luke Herrine on the history of multilevel marketing and right-wing movement building, and a CFP for the second annual ALPE…

What the history of multilevel marketing can teach us about our political moment.

The Association of Law and Political Economy invites proposals for its second annual meeting, to be held on June 9-10, 2027, in Boston, MA.

What the history of multilevel marketing can teach us about our political moment — and potential ways out of it.

2027 Annual ALPE Meeting June 9-10, 2027, Boston, MA We are thrilled to announce the Call for Proposals for the Association of Law and Political Economy’s 2027 annual meeting. We will meet in Boston, ...

What the history of multilevel marketing can teach us about our political moment — and potential ways out of it.

What the history of multilevel marketing can teach us about our political moment — and potential ways out of it.

Under the kafala system, tens of millions of migrant workers across the Levant and Gulf have their legal residency tied to a single employer, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and state control.

Gerontocracy in America has elicited a common refrain from critics: that class, not age, is the real problem. Yet this kind of class reductionism has largely been rejected when it comes to gender and…

Is LPE scholarship anti-empirical? Has contemporary law and economics become a neutral social science? Don't believe everything you hear in Chicago.