New book

Elon Musk doesn’t just play video games—he lives them. He’s crafted a worldview where life is a conquest, every obstacle is a puzzle, and people are mere NPCs (Non-player characters).[1] This mindset now fuels his leadership at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he is speedrunning the U.S. government like it’s Factorio[2] on hard mode: slashing staff, hacking bureaucracy, and treating national infrastructure like a sandbox to break and rebuild. His guiding principle? Cut, tweak, dominate, repeat. Musk has bragged about drawing strategic insights from games like Polytopia, Factorio, and Elden Ring.[3] He even admitted to cheating in order to climb leaderboards in Path of Exile 2. Because for him, the only rule is to win. These aren’t fun facts about a quirky billionaire; they’re a warning signs. Musk is exporting a gamified mindset that sees conquest as creativity, and rules as optional.

Where does better or worse regulation come from? At a time when financial crises are growing more frequent and more spectacular around the world, this question has only become more important. The quality and efficacy of economic regulation is also something that varies across time and place. Understanding the source of this variation holds important lessons for effective regulatory design for those who are willing to pay attention.

In my recent book, Visions of Financial Order, I offer new insight into the origins of regulatory success and failure by explaining the divergent development of banking regulation in three countries that were supposed to be following the same international regulatory rules—the U.S., Canada, and Spain—in the decades leading up to the 2008 global financial crisis. I show that in each country, banking regulators made different choices in key areas that directly impacted how banks experienced the crisis.

Neoliberalism has profoundly transformed industrial relations systems—most notably, the implementation of pro-business labor policies aiming at decentralizing collective bargaining and restricting unions’ bargaining power.

In the last decades, neoliberalism has been publicly contested by labor unions and social movements across the globe. However, neoliberal labor policies have proven resilient against reform. In most countries progressive governments have been unable to implement policies to restore the institutional power resources unions used to have during the “golden age” of welfare capitalism.

Why is it so difficult to reform neoliberal, pro-business labor laws? How, in the context of highly globalized societies, can workers overcome the constraints progressive governments face in promoting pro-labor policies? How, in these contexts, can organized labor influence the policymaking process?

In times of geopolitical tension generated by great power rivalry, ordinary politics and policies are often attributed to “grand strategy,” a centrally coordinated master plan for achieving hegemonic aims. This is especially so if the policymaker in question is an authoritarian country with significant economic and military might, such as China. For instance, Made in China 2025, an industrial policy that aims to enhance the international competitiveness of China’s manufacturing sectors , is widely seen as a top-down industrial strategy driven by China’s supreme leaders and embodying the national will.

My book, Markets with Bureaucratic Characteristics, traces the origin of economic  policies that have propelled China’s economic growth. It reveals the meso-level genesis of what are taken as “grand strategies”: they are formulated by ministry- and bureau-level bureaucrats who have a stake in developing policies that advance their careers in a competitive bureaucracy. Without understanding this bureaucratic source of modern politics, we fail to appreciate the backstage machinations that explain what policies emerge on the front stage.