It is well known that companies care deeply about their brands—and with good reason: a respected name attracts customers, solidifies their loyalty, and brings in higher returns. The idea of brand identity extends beyond the corporate world, though. Countries are also brands, and a country’s brand, like a corporate brand, is economically powerful. A positive country brand brings money and economic growth to it through tourism, foreign direct investment, and foreign trade; conversely, a negative country brand is economically costly. In this seminar, Professor David Reibstein from the Wharton School, who collaborates with U.S. News & World Report in developing the Best Countries Rankings, will examine nation branding as it applies to the U.S., and will discuss why a country should care about their brand globally and the role that public policy plays in shaping and communicating that brand to the world.David Reibstein|right

Today, the share of economic output that goes to workers in the form of wages or salaries, is historically low. A number of factors may contribute to this: labor-reducing machine production; anti-union policies; innovation and high fixed costs; refusals of minimum wage laws to keep up; but also anticompetitive practices. This talk addresses whether and what antitrust policy might be able do about this problem. Unreasonably low wages in relation to output are not in and of themselves an antitrust problem. However, antitrust policy is properly concerned with anticompetitive conduct that serves to suppress wages or salaries. The talk will focus on a variety of these practices – namely, “anti-poaching” agreements; mergers that enable wage suppression; employee non-compete agreements covering various categories of employees; and overly restrictive occupational licensing requirements.anti-trust|Herb Hovenkamp|labor