John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock were experimental filmmakers: both believed images were more important to movies than words, and considered movies a form of entertainment. Their styles developed gradually over long careers, and both made the films that are generally considered their greatest...

Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Frank Gehry were experimental architects: all worked visually, and arrived at their designs by discovering forms as they sketched. Their styles evolved gradually over long periods, and all three produced the buildings that are generally considered their...

This paper considers not only when in their careers the greatest artists of the twentieth century made their greatest discoveries, but also how quickly they made them. The results underscore the dominant position of Picasso and Cubism in twentieth-century art: Picasso alone accounts for the two...

A survey of art history textbooks identifies and ranks the eight most important works of the 20th century. The most important painting of the century was Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, executed by Picasso at the age of 26, which began the development of Cubism. Among the other seven works, a...

Cities are shaped by transportation infrastructure. Older cities were anchored by waterways. Nineteenth century cities followed the path of streetcars and subways. The 20th century city rebuilt itself around the car. The close connection between transportation and urban form is natural, since...

We consider the design and implementation of international trade agreements when: (i) negotiations are undertaken and commitments made in the presence of uncertainty about future political pressures; (ii) governments possess private information about political pressures at the time that the...

We revisit the debate over whether political institutions cause economic growth, or whether, alternatively, growth and human capital accumulation lead to institutional improvement. We find that most indicators of institutional quality used to establish the proposition that institutions cause...

Motivated by the structure of WTO negotiations, we analyze a bargaining environment in which negotiations proceed bilaterally and sequentially under the most-favored-nation (MFN) principle. We identify backward-stealing and forward-manipulation problems that arise when governments bargain under...

There have been two very different life cycles for great artists: some have made their greatest contributions very early in their careers, whereas others have produced their best work late in their lives. These two patterns have been associated with different working methods, as art's young...