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Katharina Pistor


Katharina Pistor is professor of comparative law at Columbia Law School. She is the author of The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality.

Katharina Pistor

Outsourcing our future to for-profit AI

Katharina Pistor 28th October 2024

The recent AI Nobel Prize win and California’s vetoed AI safety bill highlight the growing trend of placing our future in the hands of private corporations, with little public accountability.

American business will regret writing off democracy

Katharina Pistor 16th June 2024

By endorsing Donald Trump’s run for the US presidency, business leaders are embracing a man with only contempt for the law.

Will Boeing crash ‘shareholder value’?

Katharina Pistor 11th April 2024

Boeing’s self-inflicted woes hold broader lessons for contemporary corporate governance.

How finance became the problem

Katharina Pistor 6th October 2023

Finance has become the driving force behind most decision-making. We seem to have unlearned politics.

How the public loses out when politicians cash in

Katharina Pistor 25th May 2022

Gerhard Schröder has clearly breached the trust of the German people.

From shock therapy to Putin’s war

Katharina Pistor 1st March 2022

Putin is alone responsible for the war in Ukraine but prominent westerners played a key role in Russia’s post-Soviet trajectory.

The Pandora Papers and the threat to democracy

Katharina Pistor 12th October 2021

In demonstrating how some of the world’s most powerful people hide their wealth, the Pandora Papers have exposed the details of a global system.

The myth of green capitalism

Katharina Pistor 27th September 2021

Rallying behind market-based measures to address climate change allows the owners of capital yet another way to avoid a reckoning.

Green markets won’t save us

Katharina Pistor 24th March 2021

Markets are an unreliable guide for navigating a problem as large and complex as climate change.

The debt predators

Katharina Pistor 23rd July 2020

The financial system has turned credit intermediation into a debt mint.

Limited liability is causing unlimited harm

Katharina Pistor 11th February 2020

The purpose of limited-liability protection was to encourage investment in corporations, yet it has evolved into a source of systemic market failure.

Facebook’s Libra must be stopped

Katharina Pistor 24th June 2019

After years of disregarding privacy, exploiting user data and failing to control its platform, Facebook has unveiled a cryptocurrency and payment system that could take down the entire global economy.

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Ageing workforce
How are minimum wage levels changing in Europe?

In a new Eurofound Talks podcast episode, host Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound expert Carlos Vacas Soriano about recent changes to minimum wages in Europe and their implications.

Listeners can delve into the intricacies of Europe's minimum wage dynamics and the driving factors behind these shifts. The conversation also highlights the broader effects of minimum wage changes on income inequality and gender equality.

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Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Spring issue of The Progressive Post is out!


Since President Trump’s inauguration, the US – hitherto the cornerstone of Western security – is destabilising the world order it helped to build. The US security umbrella is apparently closing on Europe, Ukraine finds itself less and less protected, and the traditional defender of free trade is now shutting the door to foreign goods, sending stock markets on a rollercoaster. How will the European Union respond to this dramatic landscape change? .


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss European defence strategies, assess how the US president's recent announcements will impact international trade and explore the risks  and opportunities that algorithms pose for workers.


READ THE MAGAZINE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

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KU Leuven advertisement

The Politics of Unpaid Work

This new book published by Oxford University Press presents the findings of the multiannual ERC research project “Researching Precariousness Across the Paid/Unpaid Work Continuum”,
led by Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven), which are very important for the prospects of a more equal Europe.

Unpaid labour is no longer limited to the home or volunteer work. It infiltrates paid jobs, eroding rights and deepening inequality. From freelancers’ extra hours to care workers’ unpaid duties, it sustains precarity and fuels inequity. This book exposes the hidden forces behind unpaid labour and calls for systemic change to confront this pressing issue.

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HESA Magazine Cover

What kind of impact is artificial intelligence (AI) having, or likely to have, on the way we work and the conditions we work under? Discover the latest issue of HesaMag, the ETUI’s health and safety magazine, which considers this question from many angles.

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