Writer. Advisor. Catalyzer.

Denise explains how economic power and paradigms shape our world.

Featured In

Latest Work

  • Anti-Trust from a Multilevel Evolutionary Perspective with David Sloan Wilson

    Which is more effective for sustainability, competition or collaboration? And what can antitrust regulators learn from evolutionary biology – and vice versa?

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  • ESG's Many Sharpshooters

    Today’s proxy ESG (environmental, social, governance) wars choose narrative over reality, on both the left and the right. Therefore, the best metaphor I can find for ESG is the Texas sharpshooter.

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  • The Roll-up Economy: The Business of Consolidating Industries with Serial Acquisitions

    There is a massive, hidden force shaping the economy in the shadows. Learn how serial acquisitions affect everything from sunglasses to your local dentist.

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  • The Wizard of Oz Money Monopoly

    The Federal Reserve. Many Americans don't know much about our central bank, its function, and its founding; and yet it looms large as perhaps the most influential actor in how our economy – and financial markets – function.

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Featured Writing

ANTITRUST, ENVIRONMENT, COLLABORATION

This report – a joint publication of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law – gives an overview of the broad purview of antitrust law, and the myriad and complex ways in which it intersects with and affects sustainability goals. 

Antitrust and Sustainability: 
A Landscape Analysis

NATURE, ECONOMICS, VALUES, FINANCE

Trying to define economic "value" is similar to the challenge that scientists have in defining what it means to be alive – there is no universal definition.

What is Life? What is Economic Value? 
Embodied Economics: How Our Economic Stories Shape the World

Long Now Foundation Talk – January 2024 | San Francisco, CA

Our economic stories can seem abstract and distant, but they manifest the physical world – affecting us all. These stories shape our systems, and they in turn shape us. This talk explores myths which continue to constrain us – profits, competition, objectivity, economic value, and efficiency – and asks how we might reshape these stories to better serve planetary flourishing.

Embodied Economics

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The Myth of Capitalism

Named a Financial Times best book of 2018, The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition tells the story of how America has gone from an open, competitive marketplace to an economy where a few very powerful companies dominate key industries that affect our daily lives.