Lina M. Khan and Paul Krugman on affordability, antitrust, and inequality
Former FTC Chair Lina Khan and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman discuss how market power drives the affordability crisis and what innovative solutions exist.
Why we picked this
Two of the sharpest economic minds of this moment — Khan reshaped antitrust enforcement from the inside, Krugman has been explaining market failures for decades. Together they tackle the question everyone's asking: why is everything so expensive?
The affordability crisis touches nearly every American household, and the usual explanations — inflation, supply chains, pandemic spending — only tell part of the story. Lina M. Khan and Paul Krugman bring two complementary perspectives to a problem that sits at the intersection of market concentration, regulatory failure, and economic inequality.
Khan, the former FTC Chair who transformed antitrust enforcement and co-chaired the Mamdani transition team, brings the regulatory view. Krugman, the Nobel laureate and former New York Times columnist now at CUNY, brings the macroeconomic lens. Together they explore how affordability, antitrust, and inequality are related — and what policy approaches might actually work.
Presented by the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality. Free and open to the public.