The Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project brings together a network of scholars, practitioners, and students working to develop innovative intellectual, pedagogical, and political interventions to advance the study of political economy and law. Our work is rooted in the insight that politics and the economy cannot be separated and that both are constructed in essential respects by law. We believe that developments over the last several decades in legal scholarship and policy helped to facilitate rising inequality and precarity, political alienation, the entrenchment of racial hierarchies and intersectional exploitation, and ecological and social catastrophe. We aim to help reverse these trends by supporting scholarly work that maps where we have gone wrong, and that develops ideas and proposals to democratize our political economy and build a more just, equal, and sustainable future.
LPE project
Learn
A variety of resources designed to help faculty and students learn more about LPE, including syllabi from LPE and LPE-related courses, primers on topics such as neoliberalism and legal realism, as well as videos from a number of events we have held over the last year.
Go to LearnEngage
Information about the amazing work being done by LPE student groups, as well as guidance on starting a student group on your own campus! A bureau of affiliated professors and practitioners designed to help faculty and students to bring LPE scholars to their campuses!
Go to EngageEvents
A compendium of upcoming (and past) events put on by the LPE Project, LPE student groups, and other organizations in the LPE ecosystem.
Go to Events
Big Pharma’s Get-Out-of-U.S.-Tax-Free Card
While many industries excel at not paying U.S. corporate taxes, the pharmaceutical industry takes the cake - despite $400 billion in prescription drug sales in 2022, Big Pharma claimed to have close to zero taxable income. One of their principal methods for maintaining this charade is the constant threat of exit, moving their headquarters abroad to avoid U.S. taxes altogether. In order to collect more much needed tax revenue from corporations, policymakers must first constrain Big Pharma's ability to simply abandon ship.
Weekly Roundup: Jan 30
Edie Conekin-Tooze on hidden foster care as neoliberal family governance, an open letter from seventy-two UMN law faculty, and Luke Farrell on the means-testing industrial complex. Plus, Aslı Bâli and Aziz Rana on the roots of the Trump Doctrine, Sandeep Vaheesan and Brian Callaci on building democratic state capacity, Luke Herrine on the institutional foundations of free speech, an LPE fellowship at Open Markets, CfPs for conferences on carceral political economy, capitalism beyond neoliberalism, and Goffmanian Political Economy, a summer academy for American Political Economy, an upcoming event on the AI industry’s explosive demands for computing infrastructure, and new papers from Samuel Bagenstos and Michael Banerjee.
The Means-Testing Industrial Complex
As Republicans tightened work requirements and eligibility rules for Medicaid and SNAP last year, Equifax’s CEO openly celebrated the profits to be made from administering this deprivation. Means-testing and administrative complexity have turned America’s safety net into a lucrative revenue stream for monopolistic private contractors, underscoring the need for public data infrastructure and simpler eligibility rules.
An Open Letter to the Minnesota Law Community
Seventy-two University of Minnesota Law faculty address the federal government's ongoing campaign of fear, intimidation, and violence against Minnesotans.