Chicago School Research Articles

A Preface to Post-Chicago Antitrust

Three broad eras have characterized antitrust interpretation in the United States: a classical era around the end of the 19th Century, a structural era around the middle of the 20th Century, and a Chicago school perspective characterizing the last quarter of the 20th Century. This essay examines that history, asks why antitrust doctrine changes over time, and suggests some doctrinal possibilities for a new, post-Chicago era of antitrust interpretation that may be emerging.

Addressing Food Insecurity: An Evaluation of Factors Associated with Reach of a School-Based Summer Meals Program

BackgroundOne in six US households with children experiences food insecurity, with higher rates in the summer. Approximately 3 million children receive free meals each summer weekday through the US Department of Agriculture’s Summer Nutrition Programs. However, participation in these programs has been declining in recent years and is lower than participation in programs that serve free or reduced-price meals during the school year. ObjectiveTo identify school and site characteristics associated with greater reach by school-based free summer meals program sites. DesignThis observational study combined program data, public school data, and Google Maps data to determine factors associated with site reach. Participants/settingLunchStop Summer Meals Program sites (N=100) and schools at which they were based during summer 2018 in Chicago, IL. Main outcome measuresReach of sites was measured by the mean daily meals served at each site throughout summer 2018. Statistical analyses performedAssociations between site reach and each independent variable were evaluated using Mann-Whitney tests and simple linear regressions. Variables significantly associated with site reach in bivariate analyses (P<0.05) were included in a multivariate linear regression. ResultsIn bivariate analyses, sites with greater reach were significantly more likely to be based at schools with higher attendance percentages, higher percentages of Hispanic/Latino students, larger student populations, and locations in a network of southwest Chicago schools. Those with greater reach were also significantly more likely to have continuity in program staff and more years of site operation (all P values ≤0.01). The last four factors remained significant in multivariate analysis. ConclusionsSchool-based summer meals programs may be able to reach more vulnerable children by taking into account continuity among sites and staff. Further research is needed to clarify whether the relationships between these variables and increased reach is causal.

What is the Relationship between Theory and Research? Current Points from The Polish Peasant

100 years after its publication, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America can be remembered for the attempt to merge different perspectives and overcome the dichotomies. However, it cannot be denied that it is also a controversial work: indeed, beyond the intentions of the authors pronounced in the introduction and methodological note, the integration between theory and research is not so fluid. Our hypothesis is that these limits can be traced back to an intrinsic tension that crosses the whole work and also the Chicago School: the tension between emic and etic. On this basis, the paper traces the choices that the authors made in the different research phases: from the selection of the object of study to the gathering of information, from the data analysis to the reporting and applying the results. In the end the paper demonstrates that in The Polish Peasant the relationship of circularity between theory and research can be recognized as problem-oriented, and that the main result of the work is not so much in its interpretative capacity, nor in its (desired) methodological rigor: it is rather in the affirmation of a public role of sociology.

Bourgeois Knowledge: The Incomplete Closure of the Epistemological Break in the Work of Deirdre McCloskey

One of the defining features of modern social science and economics in particular is the hard break it posits between everyday and scientific knowledge. French philosophers have called this characteristic the epistemological break. One of the key consequences of this break is that scientists have access to superior knowledge and are in a position to inform and steer the behavior of individuals. We believe that a large epistemological break is incompatible with science in a liberal democratic society. In this paper we analyze the extent to which the writings of Deirdre McCloskey contributed to bridging the epistemological break given that her early work, and the work of some members of younger Chicago School of economics more generally, was strongly influenced by the epistemological break. In the first decade after The Rhetoric of Economics McCloskey did much to strip scientific knowledge of its special elevated status. In her later work on the bourgeoisie there is also a renewed appreciation for everyday knowledge of economic actors. Yet important tensions remain, the appreciation for bourgeois knowledge has not been generalized to an appreciation for all everyday economic knowledge. And the tension between the economist as teacher, and the economist as student of society, which is already present in the Chicago tradition, is still visible.

The Polish Peasant after One Hundred Years: An Approach from the History of Sociology

Sociology as we know it began in the twentieth century. The Polish Peasant was the first great work of empirical sociology. It was pioneering, it was unique and it involved the collaboration of an established American figure and his young Polish collaborator. It was a notable achievement of the Chicago School but it was unlike many of the classic Chicago urban and criminological studies. The authors did not collaborate again after 1918 for reasons which I will explain.

The Chicago School of Sociology and Youth Research: The Legacy of W. I. Thomas. From the Polish Peasant in Europe and America to the Child in America

During his career, William I. Thomas richly contributed to the development of youth research, both within the University of Chicago and outside the academy, in contact with social agencies. Moving from a broad focus on the studies carried out by the Chicago School of Sociology, the paper aims at tracing Thomas’ contribution and legacy to the advancement of youth research, in order to recognise his influence on the definition of the fields of investigation, the theories, and the research methods employed. The paper first considers the analysis of the women reformers affiliated with the Hull House . The core of the analysis aims at re-evaluating Thomas’ contribution, taking into specific consideration three of his works . On this basis, in the last section, the paper attempts to recover his legacy through the studies carried out by the young scholars who worked at the Department of Sociology and in its affiliated institutes and projects. Paying specific attention to the suggestions he offered, with specific reference to the analysis of the lives of young people with migrants background, young women and the programs for the treatment of delinquency, helps to identify the main strengths and challenges of the first comprehensive study of ‘urban youth’, that – over time – have inspired fruitful perspectives of analysis and important research experiences.

Exploring the Impacts of an Early Childhood Educational Intervention on Later School Selection

In the current article, we examine the long-run school selection patterns of children randomly assigned to the Chicago School Readiness Project, an early childhood educational (ECE) intervention that aimed to improve the quality of Head Start classrooms serving low-income communities. Analyses suggest that adolescents who participated in the program were more likely to opt out of their assigned neighborhood school and attend schools with better indicators of academic performance. Further analyses suggested that these selection patterns began in elementary school, although elementary school quality explained only a small portion of the effect on high school selection. Results suggest that intensive ECE interventions could have lasting effects on children’s patterns of selection into later educational environments.

Health capital: toward a conceptual framework for understanding the construction of individual health

Emerging perspectives of health as individualized and privatized capital seem promising to shed light on the construction of individual health in the face of the growing individualization of healthcare. This article reviews extant perspectives of health as capital, reflecting upon how a conceptualization of health capital might be conceived by two of the main contrasting traditions: human capital theory affiliated with the Chicago School of Economics and Bourdieusian concepts of social field and capital. Arguing that a Bourdieusian perspective is potentially more fruitful to capture the importance of social and cultural dimensions in the construction of individual health, this article arrives at a conceptualization of health capital as the aggregate of the actual or potential resources possessed by a given agent that have the capacity to affect the position of agents in the social field of health. Drawing on Bourdieu’s conceptualization of forms of capital, this article discusses the efficacy, the legitimation, and the positioning of health capital, uncovering its potential for understanding contemporary trends in health practices and health discourse.

Response to the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives

Response to the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives

Representation and Idealization: Diagrammatic Models in the Early Studies of the Spatial Structure of Periodic Markets in Rural China

This article explores how diagrams are performed in actual scientific practice by examining two studies of the structure of periodic markets in rural China before and during the World War II. These are Ching-Kun Yang’s pioneering study of systematic field observations of Chinese periodic markets in the 1930s, and the US anthropologist William G. Skinner’s model, which accounts for the social and economic structure of rural China. In both cases, the empirical studies involved in uncovering the Chinese market structure are closely connected to Western theories of geographical research: Yang’s research is influenced by the Chicago School of Sociology, led by Robert E. Park and Ernest Burgess; Skinner’s theoretical research applies the central place theory of Walter Christaller and August Lösch of the German Location School. The author argues that the social scientists’ practices demonstrate how diagrams have a specific epistemic virtue for guiding the idealization and representation, both as a process and end product, in formulating explanations for the distribution of locations. Moreover, whereas the diagrams are represented as pure geometrical shapes, they not only are the outcome of idealization but also play an important role in guiding the process of evidentiation.

Big Data and Competition Analysis Under Australian Competition Law: Comeback of the Structuralist Approach?

Competition assessment in Australia has traditionally been based on an evaluation of the market structure relying on five factors, namely the degree of market concentration, the height of barriers to entry, the extent of product differentiation, the extent of vertical integration, and the nature of arrangement between firms. These factors, known as the ‘QCMA factors’, are characteristic of competition in the manufacturing industries of the ‘old economy’. Since the ascendancy of Chicago and Post-Chicago School thinking competition analysis in Australia has also taken into consideration non-structural factors. However, in light of the dominance of big tech companies in online markets, the so-called ‘Neo-Brandeisian School’ has advocated focusing on structural elements that are characteristic of online markets. This article examines to what extent the QCMA factors still a suitable structural framework for the assessment of competition in online markets.

Oligopoly Coordination, Economic Analysis, and the Prophylactic Role of Horizontal Merger Enforcement

This article takes a fresh look at a longstanding issue in antitrust economics and policy: the problem of oligopoly coordination. First, it explains why coordinated conduct in oligopoly markets is a serious problem and an appropriate concern of antitrust enforcement. It shows that empirical economic studies, experimental results, real-world examples, and economic theory do not support the claims of antitrust commentators and courts influenced by the Chicago school that coordination is unlikely absent express collusion and that express collusion itself is uncommon. Second, it clarifies that coordinated outcomes can arise both from “purposive” conduct, when firms attempt to develop a common understanding and deter price-cutting, and from “non-purposive” conduct, when firms respond to one another’s price changes in a natural and predictable business way. While non-purposive conduct was once a central concern of antitrust enforcement, the article explains, it is largely and inappropriately ignored today. Third, the article shows how the detailed analysis of the potential coordinated effects of horizontal mergers should turn on whether the coordinated effects concern principally involves purposive or non-purposive strategic conduct. It also explains that greater concentration can be expected to make coordination more likely, stronger, or more effective, whether through purposive or non-purposive conduct. This supports a structural merger policy, by which mergers between rivals that increase concentration significantly in a concentrated market are presumed to harm competition.

Beyond the Economic Approach

Due to the nature of competition law, which deals with business behaviour affecting the economy, it is not surprising that it is economic and not legal theories which have shaped the ‘modern’ approach. The dominant theoretical stream in competition law is welfare economics, informed by the neoliberal thinking of the Chicago and Post-Chicago Schools. In order to determine the anti-competitiveness of certain conduct, welfare economics applies a consequentialist approach by determining economic harm; anticompetitive harm occurs if total or consumer welfare and efficiency decrease.

The Hughesian Legacy: William Shaffir—A Principal Interpreter of the Chicago School Diaspora in Canada

In this paper, I discuss the invaluable role played by William Shaffir, my mentor and doc­toral supervisor, who shaped my approach to interpretive fieldwork and deepened my understanding of symbolic interactionist theory. Known affectionately as Billy to his colleagues and students, Shaffir is a gifted educator and one of the finest ethnographic researchers of his generation. My focus is on how the scholarly tradition that flows from Georg Simmel through Robert Park, Herbert Blumer, and Everett C. Hughes, passed from Billy on to me, is illustrative of what Low and Bowden (2013) conceptualize as the Chicago School Diaspora. This concept does not refer to the scattering of a people, but rather to how key ideas and symbolic representations of key figures associated with the Chicago School have been tak­en up by those who themselves are not directly affiliated with the University of Chicago. In this regard, while not a key figure of the Chicago School himself, Shaffir stands at the boundary between the Chica­go School of sociology and scholars with no official relationship to the School. As such he is a principal interpreter of the Chicago School Diaspora in Canadian Sociology.

MP22-16 MULTI-INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS OF PERIOPERATIVE FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH FAILED PRIMARY URETEROSCOPY WITHOUT PRIOR URETERAL STENTING

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Ureteroscopy (URS) for treatment of nephrolithiasis is often attempted without a prior ureteral stent placement. When access to the stone fails, ureteral stenting is required for passive ureteral dilation in anticipation of a repeat URS in the future. In this study, we perform a multicenter analysis to identify patient or stone factors associated with failed unstented primary ureteroscopy (FURS). METHODS: We reviewed all primary URS for nephrolithiasis without prior ureteral stenting, performed at two institutions, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago (2007-2016) and Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis (2016). Variables of interest in predicting failed primary URS include patient characteristics, stone characteristics, and prior stone surgery. Multivariate analysis was performed to identify significant factors associated with FURS. RESULTS: Failure rate for accessing the unstented ureter was 6.3% (40/634). Comparing successful URS (SURS) to FURS there was no difference in patient sex (p = 0.33) or age (0.69). Having a prior stone surgery including PCNL (p = 0.71), ESWL (p = 0.41), and URS (p = 0.57) was not associated with a FURS. Stone laterality and total stone burden (mean 9.5 mm vs 9.1 mm respectively) were similar between SURS and FURS. The number of stones at the time of URS also did not predict likelihood of URS failure (0.18). CONCLUSIONS: Failure of accessing stone during primary ureteroscopy can be hard to predict, but occurs in 6.3% of the time in our multi-institutional analysis. Having a prior stone surgery including PCNL, ESWL and URS does not affect the risk of having an unsuccessful primary ureteroscopy. Source of Funding: none

Применимость символического интеракционизма Герберта Блумера в политическом анализе интернет-коммуникаций

The aim of the article is to study the model of symbolic interactionism by the American sociologist Herbert Blumer and to identify the analytical elements that are most applicable to the political analysis of internet communications. The authors used the hermeneutic approach, including the identification of central premises in Blumer's model as well as an additional interpretation of such premises. Quantitative content analysis was used as an auxiliary methodological optics. The analysis demonstrated that the analytical tools of symbolic interactionism from the Chicago School (definitive and sensitizing concepts, exploration and inspection, etc.) can be effectively tailored and used for current research of internet communications in applied political science. The authors conclude that identifying the transaction process is the most important result of applying Blumer’s symbolic interactionism model to a study of social media communities by a political scientist. It is demonstrated that the conditions of social media require investigating the mechanism of behavior adaptation by each individual to the behavior of others. This gives an insight into the mechanism by which social life and the political regime are streamlined and stabilized.

Where Chicago meets London: James M. Buchanan, Virginia Political Economy, and cost theory

James M. Buchanan argued that not only the study of public choice, but also property-rights economics as well as law and economics, can be traced directly to the work of scholars associated with the Thomas Jefferson Center for Studies in Political Economy and Social Philosophy at the University of Virginia (UVA). We draw attention to that point by raising the following question: what was the common knowledge at UVA that made it uniquely suited for the development of each of those related, yet distinct subdisciplines of political economy? Fundamentally, the answer is the unique combination of Chicago price theory and London School of Economics cost theory developed at UVA, where opportunity costs were regarded not as constraints to which individuals passively respond. Rather, they are the reciprocal of the act of choice itself. That subtle distinction has significant implications not only for public policy, but, what is more important, the proper scale and of governmental responses to market failures. The unique combination of the Chicago and London schools was central to the development of a neglected branch of price theory at the University of Virginia.

The anti-discriminatory tradition in Virginia school public choice theory

This paper investigates the historical relationship between the emergence of public choice theory in the 1960s and the problem of racial discrimination. Drawing upon archival research, I argue that foundational public choice scholars brought together four distinct strains of anti-discriminatory theory to grapple with the challenges posed by segregationist public policy instruments during the Civil Rights era. They include (1) the treatment of racial discrimination as regulatory capture, which is typified in the work of Frank Knight and W. H. Hutt; (2) the treatment of discrimination as an efficiency problem, building upon the closely related Chicago school insights of Gary Becker and Milton Friedman; (3) the treatment of discrimination as a constitutional problem, as seen in extensions of the framework of James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock; and (4) historical analysis of discriminatory institutions, also as seen in the work of Tullock. Together, the four components provided the basis of a comprehensive economic critique of discrimination that has since been neglected in the literature on the history of economic thought, and that offers far-reaching insights into the academic literature on race and the continued problem of discriminatory institutions.

Antitrust Regulation in Japan and South Korea – What Influence Does Chicago School of Antitrust Exercise on Competition Policy and Digital Economy

The 2020 World Economic Forum considered digital data of such high priority that it was denoted as “the new oil” (WEF 2020). It outlined that trust building between all market actors is of great importance, “Like the traditional economy, the digital economy consists of a web of relationships—between individuals and businesses, businesses and governments, governments and citizens, and the governments of different countries. Each relationship is a vector of trust, with its own unique characteristics and requirements to keep them functioning and healthy” (WEF 2020). This ‘vector of trust’, especially between governments and businesses, has been severely affected by worldwide data protection breaches. Consequently, some companies’ unfair market behavior pose legal challenges for national policy makers especially in East Asia.

JOHN DEWEY AND HIS CHICAGO'S SCHOOL

John Dewey are distinguished educationalist, philosopher and psychologist. Dewey founded legendary Chicago's school with organic method education. Dewey explored children's inner impulses and attractions, which are natural resources active growth of child. Therefore pupils acquired knowledge on base own interests and passions. in school children played, experiments, invented. Thanks to such education pupils get to knows world in all beauty, creates, masters abilities and habits, which are necessary for life. in contrast to other schools, where education accomplished under dictation of teacher and pupils only learned by rote knowledge, in Dewey's school the children not receive knowledge passive, but by means own research work, which they realized in special school laboratories. Thanks to such approach the pupils consciously masters knowledge, involving own thought, feelings and fantasy.in Dewey's school the pupils studied knowledge in close connection with real life, mastering different skills and habits. The children by means of history, geography, biology, chemistry, mathematics, geometry, physics, art and other knowledge learned of agriculture, cookery, carpentry, weaving. in Dewey's school important place take up the dramatization. By means dramatization the pupils cognized the world around and inner world. The children visited museums, libraries, exhibitions for studding history, culture and traditions of American nation. The different excursions, marches, cruises and trips assisted expansion horizon of pupil. So Dewey's school educated free, independent, creative, comprehensive personality.John Dewey are author such books as “My Pedagogic Creed” (1897), “The School and Society” (1899), “The Child and the Curriculum” (1902), “How We Think” (1910), “Democracy and Education” (1916), “Experience and Nature” (1925), “individualism Old and New” (1930), “Philosophy and Civilization” (1931), “Art as Experience” (1934), “Experience and Education” (1938), “Freedom and Culture” (1939). This books are actual for Ukrainian education. They teaches as how we must treat to child and his spiritual life.