This chapter highlights the challenges and potential negative effects that foreign intervention may hold for the classical liberalism and libertarianism. Foreign intervention is the use of the discretionary power of a government in one society to address the perceived problems in foreign...

The U.S. economy has been in a state of “permanent war” since at least World War II. The war economy arises from institutional changes that become embedded within the system with each of the 20th and 21st century conflicts. This chapter illustrates the continuing relevance of Robert Higgs in...

What affects the choices of terrorism and counter-terrorism? New researchers interested in this field might feel overwhelmed by the vast literature that emerged after the 9/11 attacks. We review existing trends and policies related to international terrorist activities. We describe the...

How can public policy best deal with infectious disease? In answering this question, scholarship on the optimal control of infectious disease adopts the model of a benevolent social planner who maximizes social welfare. This approach, which treats the social health planner as a unitary “public...

Though it is not the only cryptocurrency in circulation, Bitcoin has been one of the dominant and more highly valued digital currencies in the blockchain family. The IRS recently decided to treat Bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies as property, thus causing ownership interests in these...

We repurpose an agent-based model of ethnocentrism to show how violence affects people's willingness to cooperate with members of other groups. We account for extra benefits that arise from interacting with a member of the same culture (‘cultural boosts') and for mutual gains from cooperative...

Bike Virginia is a multi-day cycling event that takes place in different locations each year throughout the state of Virginia. It often draws over 2000 participants, from all over the US and many international locations. In June 2018, the organization held a six-day event in the New River Valley...

We use Hammond and Axelrod's (2006) agent-based model of ethnocentrism to show how people's willingness to cooperate with outsiders is affected by mutually beneficial exchange. In environments where one person gains at the expense of others (‘charity economies'), we find discrimination to be a...

This chapter highlights the increasing utilization of private aid in economic development. While there is a broad appeal for using private development assistance over official development assistance, limitations to effectiveness do remain. Those who view private aid as a cure-all for development...

Economists model state-provided defense as a value-added, public good. The actual government provision of defense, however, is a “black box” that is rarely analyzed. This chapter contributes to opening this black box by analyzing the U.S. defense budget. We provide an institutional...