Pay-as-you-go Social Security is typically characterized as a universal defined benefit pension program. Implicit in this characterization is a sense that the participant%u2019s investment in future benefits is somehow guaranteed, or safe from risk. This study develops the concept of...

The paper provides a comparative history of the economic impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. By focussing on the relative price evidence, it is possible to show that the conflict had major economic effects around the world. Britain's control of the seas meant that it was much less...

The French Revolution of 1789 had a momentous impact on neighboring countries. The French Revolutionary armies during the 1790s and later under Napoleon invaded and controlled large parts of Europe. Together with invasion came various radical institutional changes. French invasion removed the...

Randomized controlled trials are increasingly used to evaluate policies. How can we make these experiments as useful as possible for policy purposes? We argue greater use should be made of experiments that identify behavioral mechanisms that are central to clearly specified policy questions,...

I examine Ronald Coase's criticism of standard regulatory and tax policies to address environmental externalities. I elaborate some of Coase's key points and discuss opportunities for Coasean exchange as an alternative mitigation approach. Regulation, tax, and Coasean exchange, such as through...

We ask whether attitudes toward government play a causal role in the evasion of U.S. personal income taxes. We use individual-level survey data to demonstrate a link between sharing the party of the president and trust in the administration generally and opinions on taxation and spending policy,...

This paper studies optimal lockdown policies in a dynamic economy without government commitment. A lockdown imposes a cap on labor supply, which lowers economic output but improves health prospects. A government would like to commit to limit the extent of future lockdowns in order to increase...

We study the optimal lockdown policy for a planner who wants to control the fatalities of a pandemic while minimizing the output costs of the lockdown. We use the SIR epidemiology model and a linear economy to formalize the planner's dynamic control problem. The optimal policy depends on the...

Neither economics nor political science can explain the process of modern social development. The fact that developed societies always have developed economies and developed polities suggests that the connection between economics and politics must be a fundamental part of the development...

We develop a model of political cycles driven by time-varying risk aversion. Agents choose to work in the public or private sector and to vote Democrat or Republican. In equilibrium, when risk aversion is high, agents elect Democrats—the party promising more redistribution. The model predicts...