Issue Areas

Terms and conditions for generative AI users outline a new legal framework that puts U.S. consumers at risk (opens in a new tab)

Essays Aug 20, 2026

Generative AI, or genAI, is a form of artificial intelligence that produces content in response to prompts and includes large language model chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude.…

ASSA 2026 Round-up: Day 3 (opens in a new tab)

Blog Jan 6, 2026

Yesterday was the third and final day of the 2026 annual meeting of the Allied Social Science Associations, which is organized by the American Economic Association. The 3-day conference, held…

ASSA 2026 Round-up: Day 2 (opens in a new tab)

Blog Jan 5, 2026

Yesterday was the second day of the 2026 annual meeting of the Allied Social Science Associations, which is organized by the American Economic Association. The 3-day conference, held in Philadelphia…

ASSA 2026 Round-up: Day 1 (opens in a new tab)

Blog Jan 4, 2026

Yesterday was the first day of the 2026 annual meeting of the Allied Social Science Associations, which is organized by the American Economic Association. The 3-day conference, held in Philadelphia…

What impact is artificial intelligence having on the U.S. labor market and the nation’s economy? (opens in a new tab)

Essays Nov 14, 2025

As new and groundbreaking technologies emerge, they can function as a blank canvas onto which people project both aspirations and anxieties. Artificial intelligence—despite its quick uptake in broader society and…

Equity Prices, Market Power, and Optimal Corporate Tax Policy (opens in a new tab)

Working Papers Jul 22, 2025

We study the optimal design of corporate tax policy in a textbook life-cycle model featuring two key deviations: (i) firms are imperfectly competitive and (ii) households save by purchasing equity…

Request for Proposals: The economic effects of the Inflation Reduction Act (opens in a new tab)

RFPs Apr 2, 2025

Understanding market concentration in the AI supply chain (opens in a new tab)

Blog Jan 28, 2025

Artificial intelligence is more than just the applications we use, such as chatbots and predictive algorithms. Beneath the surface of AI lies a technology stack that is increasingly concentrated at…

Request for Proposals: Promoting competition and supporting workers in an era of AI innovation (opens in a new tab)

RFPs Nov 20, 2024

Request for proposals: Research grants for early career scholars (opens in a new tab)

RFPs Oct 30, 2024

As hospitals merge over time, FTC enforcement actions remain low (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations Jul 25, 2024

The impact of rising U.S. healthcare prices on changes in unemployment across the income distribution (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations Jul 25, 2024

U.S. hospital prices have grown faster than any other major category of consumption (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations Jul 25, 2024

Hospital consolidation and rising health care prices lead to job losses for U.S. workers (opens in a new tab)

Issue Briefs Jul 25, 2024

The majority of working-age adults in the United States have health insurance via their employers. Theory and a growing body of research suggest that when the cost of workers’ benefits…

Is There Too Little Antitrust Enforcement in the US Hospital Sector? (opens in a new tab)

Working Papers Apr 24, 2024

From 2002 to 2020, there were over 1,000 mergers of US hospitals. During this period, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took enforcement actions against 13 transactions. However, using the FTC’s…

Combating market power through a graduated U.S. corporate income tax (opens in a new tab)

Issue Briefs Apr 15, 2024

Editor’s note: This version has been updated from the original publication on April 15, 2024. The update corrects a prior underestimate of the revenue potential from graduated corporate tax rates…

Hospital consolidation matters (opens in a new tab)

Reports Apr 4, 2024

The U.S. policy landscape is replete with reports from organizations across the political spectrum decrying the lack of competition in hospital markets around the nation and the resulting high prices,…

Matching competition policy in the U.S. healthcare industry to address a new generation of challenges in provider markets (opens in a new tab)

Issue Briefs Mar 20, 2024

Antitrust policy in the U.S. healthcare sector is perennially 10 years behind the industry. But at the start of the Biden administration in early 2021, there was hope for a…

Request for Proposals: How effective was the fiscal response to the COVID-19 recession for workers? (opens in a new tab)

RFPs Mar 18, 2024

The impacts of increasing U.S. hospital consolidation on Medicaid recipients (opens in a new tab)

Blog Jan 25, 2024

The U.S. healthcare sector is a consequential part of the overall economy. As of 2021, U.S. healthcare expenditures alone would rank third among the world’s largest economies in terms of…

What the research says about the impacts of hospital consolidation across the United States (opens in a new tab)

Blog Dec 6, 2023

When patients in the United States rely on hospitals for care, they are often at their most vulnerable, such as during acute illnesses, when suffering major injuries, or while giving…

Request for proposals: Research grants for early career scholars (opens in a new tab)

RFPs Nov 30, 2023

Sameera Fazili and Mary Beth Maxwell join Equitable Growth’s Board of Directors (opens in a new tab)

Blog Nov 15, 2023

The Washington Center for Equitable Growth today announced the addition of two new members to its board of directors: Sameera Fazili, former deputy assistant to the president and deputy director…

The consequences of U.S. hospital consolidation on local economies, healthcare providers, and patients (opens in a new tab)

Reports Nov 15, 2023

Policymakers, regulators, stakeholders, and academics have yet to grapple with the full cross-sectional impacts of hospital mergers. While the evidence is clear that consolidation leads to higher prices in concentrated…

Antitrust Enforcement Increases Economic Activity (opens in a new tab)

Working Papers Sep 13, 2023

We hand-collect and standardize information describing all 3,055 antitrust lawsuits brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) between 1971 and 2018. Using restricted establishment-level microdata from the U.S. Census, we…

U.S. labor market concentration, competition, and worker bargaining power as employment trends shift from manufacturing to services (opens in a new tab)

Blog Sep 6, 2023

Labor market concentration and competition in the United States has received renewed and well-deserved attention over the past several years. Competitive labor markets are critical engines of economic growth, worker…

Local and National Concentration Trends in Jobs and Sales: The Role of Structural Transformation (opens in a new tab)

Working Papers Sep 6, 2023

National industrial concentration in the U.S. has risen sharply since the early 1980s, but there remains dispute over whether local geographic concentration has followed a similar trend. Using near population…

New data and analysis suggest private equity takeovers of U.S. medical practices cause anticompetitive harms to patients, insurers, and employers in local markets (opens in a new tab)

Blog Jul 10, 2023

The linked resources and the PDF for this piece were updated on February 20, 2024. Private equity firms are deeply engaged in buying up and consolidating medical practices across the…

Equitable Growth delivers comment letter responding to the Federal Trade Commission’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Non-Compete Clauses (opens in a new tab)

Blog Apr 20, 2023

The Washington Center for Equitable Growth this week delivered a comment letter responding to the Federal Trade Commission’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Non-Compete Clauses. In our comment letter,…

Major federal ‘Big Tech’ antitrust case against Google will test the strength of current U.S. antitrust laws in new digital markets (opens in a new tab)

Blog Mar 13, 2023

A high-profile antitrust enforcement action taken in January by the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice against Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit—one of the largest technology companies in the…