News

BESI's Sam Trachtman recently spoke to L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez about the causes of California's decline from a land of growth and opportunity to one suffering from a profound cost-of-living crisis.

In a new op-ed, BESI's Brian Judge argues that the real motivation for the AI industry's recent warnings is more about propping up impending IPOs than concern for humanity.

In an interview with Perfil co-founder Jorge Fontevecchia, BESI's Brian Judge sets the record straight about the rise of neoliberal economics.

On February 26, 2026, sociologist Fabian Muniesa visited BESI for a talk on paradoxes of modern finance, arguing that the tension is best resolved by recognizing a fascist propensity at the heart of finance.

In a new op-ed, BESI senior research Sam Trachtman argues California needs to change how California funds public policy that serves its progressive goals.

USA Today reporter Noe Padilla references BESI's research on energy affordability in California for a report on Xavier Bacerra's new "power hour" plan.

The article, coauthored with environmental governance researcher Nicholas Goedeking, advances understanding of the mechanisms of trans-subsystem policy change, offering a model of the politics of tipping points.

Recorded at BESI on March 30, 2026, this panel conversation brings together perspectives from the political economy of food systems, the legal frameworks governing emerging biomedical technologies, and bioethics in the humanities and fiction.

BESI's Brian Judge writes about the potentially catastrophic consequences of U.S. asset markets' one-way bet on AI.

On April 9, 2026, MIT political scientist Kathy Thelen visited BESI to discuss the origins and implications of the new cloud business model powering the AI boom and how it differs from the traditional platform out of which it grew.

In this talk, Harvard political scientist Stephanie Ternullo explores the political tensions of suburbs that support liberal policies at the national level but sustain exclusionary housing and education policies at the local level.

Organized by the Berkeley Program on Finance and Democracy at BESI, the Rhodes Center at Brown, the European Institute at LSE, and the Huth Initiative at LSE, the annual Finance and Democracy Summer School program aims to weave an emerging generation of researchers into an international network that bolsters the study of finance, political economy, and democracy.