There is a strong tradition of examining the economic motivation behind the drafting and ratification of the U.S. Constitution. The constitutional movement, however, was not the first attempt at a stronger central government. This paper investigates the economic and geographic interests behind...

Despite its professed emphasis on the real world, the Post Keynesian literature lacks a history of business cycle fluctuations in a particular economy. This is an extremely important oversight. Not only might such a study be useful to researchers, but students are anxious to acquire practical as...

The paper examines the efficiency of Bulgarian banks and its determinants over the period 1999-2007. The levels of technical, allocative, and cost efficiency are estimated using a non-parametric methodology and then regressed upon a number of bank-specific, institutional, and EU-related factors....

We calculate the welfare effects of the WSU wheat breeding programs for producers and consumers in Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, the United States and the rest of the world. We develop a partial equilibrium multi-region, multi-product, multi-variety trade model for wheat that provides...

Livestock producers operating large-scale confinement operations, such as dairies, are looking for ways to handle and dispose of manure that are cost effective and efficiently meet odor and pollution policies. Farm level production of biogas using anaerobic digesters is one solution that helps...

Given the recent interest in renewable energy from agriculture based on row crop waste and energy crops, this paper takes a transaction cost view of biomass supply chain strategies. First an investigation of the biomass and bioenergy literature reveals a need for an organizational perspective on...

That the economy goes through periods of expansion and recession is obvious. Whether or not this represents endogenously-generated cycles or simply stochastic variation around a trend is, however, a matter of debate. Among mainstream economists, the latter is the predominant position. For Post...

Curiously and in spite of its name, very few business cycle theories actually treat it as a cycle. Mainstream economics, for example, models all macroeconomic fluctuations as a function of exogenous forces. In their view, the economy remains at full employment indefinitely unless impacted by...

Today, we are in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Recovery has not been swift, and policymakers and citizens throughout the globe have turned to economists for answers. While in the mainstream, the general opinion is that the collapse was unpredictable and...

John Maynard Keynes’ argued that crises were systemic and that, unless serious reforms were implemented, they would tend to grow in frequency and severity. The paper sets out to build a Keynes-style model of crises that captures both the unique characteristics of each type and their common...