Hospital price transparency has not delivered lower costs because buyers still lack meaningful alternatives. A new proposal would restore bargaining power by pairing independently set reference prices with a ban on restrictive hospital contracts that prevent health plans from steering patients elsewhere.

By David Introcaso and Adam Cunningham

Inflation is usually treated as a national problem, to be managed through domestic monetary and fiscal policy. But its striking synchronization across countries suggests another story, one where it is shaped by global production, capital mobility, currency hierarchies, and the international distribution of economic power.

By Carlo D'Ippoliti, Lucio Gobbi, and ​Daniele Tori

America helped pioneer the electric-vehicle revolution, yet today no major EV battery maker is based in the United States. Asia’s dominance reveals how sustained investment, organizational capabilities, and America’s embrace of shareholder value reshaped the global race for a critical technology.

By Matt Hopkins and William Lazonick

The collapse of America’s political center isn’t a mystery. What looks like a sudden political crisis is really the result of an economy that’s been quietly abandoning ordinary workers for decades.

By Thomas Ferguson, Servaas Storm, and Jie Chen

Senate Finance Committee Democrats have invited outside evidence and proposals for their next health-care agenda. Their critique of insurers has force, but the remedies leave most of the system untouched, risking further disappointment unless reform reaches hospitals and entire conglomerates.

By Phillip Alvelda and Thomas Ferguson

As America marks 250 years of independence, Adam Smith is again being pressed into service as a founding myth. A deeper reading of The Wealth of Nations reveals a far richer thinker than today’s easy invocations of markets and liberty suggest.

By Alessandro Roncaglia