For approximately the past forty years, it has been fashionable among those studying public commodities to scorn the Balkanization of their production and distribution. Economists have been noteworthy in this regard. They have based their advocacy for the control and provision of public services...

This paper focuses on a series of studies that have attempted to estimate the costs of industrial water pollution abatement and that have been conducted or sponsored in the United States by the Environmental Protection Agency. These studies are critically examined and recommendations for their...

This chapter supplies, for the first time, a table that contains all 56 episodes of hyperinflation, including several which had previously gone unreported. The Hyperinflation Table is compiled in a systematic and uniform way. Most importantly, it meets the replicability test. It utilizes clean...

The Federal Reserve has a long history of creating aggregate demand bubbles in the United States. In the ramp up to the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy in September 2008, the Fed not only created a classic aggregate demand bubble, but also facilitated the spawning of many market-specific bubbles....

Expositions of the theory of public finance mostly assume that taxation must be the primary instrument for generating revenue. This assumption is neither historically accurate nor theoretically necessary. Rather, it universalizes an institutional arrangement that is particular to the...

Zimbabwe experienced the first hyperinflation of the 21st century. The government terminated the reporting of official inflation statistics, however, prior to the final explosive months of Zimbabwe's hyperinflation. We demonstrate that standard economic theory can be applied to overcome this...

This essay examines options for bringing a sounder currency to Jamaica. The issues involved are vital for citizens and politicians in Jamaica because Jamaica's record for producing a sound currency has been so bad