There are three separate strands of literature in economics that are related to the efficiency of takings under eminent domain: one addresses the question of optimal compensation for properties that are taken, a second inquires how governments might learn the values of properties that they...

Two commonly-used criteria for evaluating voting rules are how infrequently the rules provide opportunities for strategic voting and how infrequently they encounter voting paradoxes. The lack of ranking data from enough actual elections to determine these frequencies with reasonable accuracy...

We trace the developments that led to quadratic voting, from Vickrey's counterspeculation mechanism and his second-price auction through the family of Groves mechanisms and its most notable member, the Clarke mechanism, to the expected externality mechanism, the Groves-Ledyard mechanism, and the...

When three or more individuals with disparate talents form a business partnership, they may find it difficult to agree on how their profits will be divided. This paper explores a rule for dividing the profits that depends only on the partners' estimates of the relative contributions of other...

Transportation improvements tend to raise property values. But how do they affect the two components of property value, land and buildings? We develop a simple model to show that transportation improvements that raise the value of land generally lower the value of existing buildings. Our model...

We assess the frequencies with which fourteen voting rules encounter nine voting paradoxes and ties, using a statistical model that simulates ranking profiles that follow the same distribution as ranking profiles in actual elections. Thus the frequencies that we estimate from our simulated data...

One criterion for evaluating voting rules is the frequency with which they select the best candidate. Using a spatial model of voting that is capable of simulating data with the same statistical structure as data from actual elections, we simulate elections for which we can define the best...

When urban renewal requires land assembly, owners who hold out may delay or prevent efficient redevelopment. Governments that use eminent domain to take such properties might cause socially inefficient redevelopment if they underestimate the values of these properties. None of the recent...