CfP Deadline:
June 1, 2026
Conference Event:
November 6-7, 2026
Event Location:
Chicago, United States
Organizer(s):
PolEconFin
Stigler Center
CEPR
Description:
PolEconFin jointly organizes with the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago and the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) a conference series on the Political Economy of Finance. The objective is to promote research on this highly topical area, usually treated separately in economics and finance, and build a community of researchers active in political economy of finance.
This conference series is held annually and alternates between Europe and the United States. The conference hosts a limited number of paper presentations with designated discussants and ample opportunity for discussion and interaction. Each edition of the conference focuses on a specific theme.
A century after J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Mellon, the rise of crony capitalism in America raises a familiar political economy question: how business elites intertwine with political elites to help them gain and entrench power.
Today’s mechanisms may look different than those in the past, but the core dynamic appears similar: concentrated wealth can underwrite political ascents, reshape the information environment, and weaken democratic accountability and state capacity. The emphasis is not only on policy favors but on how economic power can be converted into political power, tilting the rules of democratic competition and making influence self-reinforcing.
We aim to bring together scholars from finance, economics, political science, history, and law to compare these dynamics across countries and time, and to identify when and why the alliance between economic and political power becomes especially consequential for American democracy in the twenty-first century.
Submission:
Please submit papers through this link. The submission deadline is Monday 1 June 2026 (11:59PM CT).
If you have any difficulties submitting your paper for this event, please contact Matthew Lucky (matthew.lucky@chicagobooth.edu). There is no submission fee. The authors will be notified about the acceptance of papers end of August 2026.