One of the greatest logicians of the twentieth century, Bertrand Russell, proposed that Economic power, unlike military power, is not primary, but derivative. Curiously, this conjecture has received scarce attention. This paper explores this theory. Our illustrative discourse tests this...

This paper presents theory and evidence to show that imperialism was a major factor impeding the spread of the industrial revolution during the century ending in the 1950s. Two empirical results stand out. First, analysis of historical evidence shows that most sovereign countries were...

This paper presents a schematic history of the global economy since 1800. The economic and political logic of global capitalism in this period is defined by its ability to derive a growing share of its energy from fossil fuels. The explosive growth of this period, the dominance of capital, the...

Tacit collusion reduces welfare comparably to explicit collusion but remains mostly unaddressed by antitrust enforcement which greatly depends on evidence of explicit communication. We propose to target specific elements of firms’ behavior that facilitate tacit collusion by providing...

Most late 19th-century US economists gave a rather cool welcome to the Sherman Act (1890) and, though less harshly, to the Clayton and FTC Acts (1914). A large literature has identified several explanations for this surprising attitude, calling into play the relation between big business and...

The paper presents three different reconstructions of the 1980s boom of game theory and its rise to the present status of indispensable tool-box for modern economics. The first story focuses on the Nash refinements literature and on the development of Bayesian games. The second emphasizes the...

The paper analyzes the last three decades of debates on predatory pricing in US antitrust law, starting from the literature which followed Areeda & Turner 1975 and ending with the early years of the new century, after the Brooke decision. Special emphasis is given to the game-theoretic approach...