Becker Friedman Institute for Economics at University of Chicago — Frontier Research, Global Impact.

Frontier Research, Global Impact.

UChicago’s Hub for Economic Research and Analysis

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BFI Partners with AI Firm Anthropic

BFI Welcomes New Leadership

DATA. DISCOVERY. IMPACT.

Introducing the BFI Data Studio

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Latest Insights

The latest economic commentary from UChicago's leading scholars, fellows, and special guests. Featuring Research Briefs, Interactive Charts, Videos, Podcasts, and more.

Podcasts episode·Jan 20, 2026

Venezuela After Maduro: What Comes Next?

Days after the Trump administration’s surprise military operation captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, a panel of UChicago scholars gathered to make sense of what it means for Venezuela, the United States, and the region. Professor Christopher Blattman, Deputy Dean Ryan...

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Research Briefs·Jan 20, 2026

Closed Visas Trap Temporary Foreign Workers in Worse Jobs

Gaining permanent residency leads to a sharp, immediate, and persistent increase in job switching of 21.7 percentage points and a 5.7% increase in earnings, 56% of which is attributable to workers sorting into higher-wage firms.

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Research Briefs·Jan 14, 2026

Time-Based Competition Defines Digital Markets: Field Experiments Show Breaking Up Meta Would Harm Users

Field experiments reveal that Facebook and Instagram compete broadly for user time, not narrowly with Snapchat for social networking. When platform usage drops, only 6-16% of diverted time shifts to other social networks; the rest scatters across gaming, YouTube, TikTok,...

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Podcasts episode·Jan 13, 2026

Why Banks Exist and Why They Fail: Douglas Diamond on Runs, Regulation, and the Risks of Short-Term Debt

Financial crises are “everywhere and always” a problem of short-term debt. In this Extra Slice of The Pie, Nobel laureate Douglas Diamond explains his groundbreaking research on why banks exist in the first place, and why they’re vulnerable to runs....

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Latest Frontier Research

The BFI Working Paper Series disseminates current research in economics to encourage comments and discussion.

BFI Working Paper·Jan 21, 2026

Rational Disagreement

We propose rational disagreement as a formal framework for analyzing seemingly irrational behavior that can persist despite the wide availability of objective information in a steady-state. Agents are rational in that they correctly anticipate the distribution of aggregate outcomes, yet...

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BFI Working Paper·Jan 21, 2026

FinTech and Customer Capital

Financial Technology (“FinTech”) firms invest significantly more in customer capital relative to traditional financial firms, and such investment builds valuable customer capital. Higher investment by FinTech firms is not accounted for by sectoral focus or differences in firm age. Reasons...

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BFI Working Paper·Jan 21, 2026

Business Concentration around the World: 1900-2020

We collect new data to document the long-run evolution of the firm size distribution in ten market-based economies in Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania, where we can obtain comprehensive coverage of the population of firms. Around the world, we...

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Past Events

Academic Conferences·Jan 12, 2026, 12:00 PM·Charles M. Harper Center | Room 3B

Winter 2026 Behavioral Economics Seminar Series

by Francesca Bastianello and Avner Strulov-Shlain

Event·Jan 12, 2026, 12:00 PM·Sky Suite, Keller Center

Policy Outlook: Geopolitics, Oil, and U.S. Strategy in Venezuela After Maduro

Academic Conferences·Dec 12, 2025, 1:30 PM·Charles M. Harper Center

Fall 2025 Trade and Spatial Afternoons Seminar Series

by Rodrigo Adão, Agostina Brinatti, and Juanma Castro-Vincenzi

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Upcoming Events

Academic Conferences·Jan 26, 2026, 12:00 PM·Charles M. Harper Center | Room 3B

Winter 2026 Behavioral Economics Seminar Series

Organizers: Francesca Bastianello and Avner Strulov-Shlain

Academic Conferences·Jan 29, 2026, 9:00 AM·University of Chicago | David Rubenstein Forum | Room 601 1201 E 60th St, Chicago, IL 60637

2026 Conference on Budget Analysis and Public Policy

Organizers: Elizabeth Cove Delisle, Peter Ganong, Jeffrey Kling, Julie Topoleski, and Heidi Williams

Event·Jan 30, 2026, 11:30 AM·David Rubenstein Forum, City View Room

How Economists Could Help Inform Economic and Budget Analysis Used by the US Congress

Organizers: Jeffrey Kling and Heidi Williams

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About BFI

BFI serves as a hub for cutting-edge analysis and research across the entire University of Chicago economics community.

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About the Becker Friedman Institute

The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) serves as a hub for cutting-edge analysis and research across the entire University of Chicago economics community, uniting researchers from the Booth School of Business, the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, the...

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Our Legacy

Inspired by our namesakes, Nobel Laureates Gary Becker and Milton Friedman, who believed that economics research could help improve the world, BFI works with the Chicago Economics community to turn its evidence-based research into real-world impact.

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