This paper studies the market provision of a specific type of public good: radio and television broadcasts. Its main focus is to explore the ability of the market to provide broadcasting efficiently in a world in which broadcasters earn revenues by selling time to advertisers and advertisements...

The present paper analyzes the competitive, monopolistic, and public enforcement of fines allowing for the costs of enforcement to differ by the choice of the enforcer. There are a number of reasons to expect such differences. First, the benefits from coordinating enforcement -- for example,...

This paper examines the question whether adjudication can be viewed as a private good, i.e., one whose optimal level will be generated in a free market. Part I focuses on private courts, noting their limitations as institutions for dispute resolution and rule creation but also stressing the...

This short note emphasizes and illustrates two basic points: (1) The private costs of unemployment, i.e., the costs borne by the unemployed themselves, vary substantially and are often extremely low. This low private cost is an important cause of the permanently high unemployment rate in the...

Financial crises are bank runs. At root the problem is short-term debt (private money), which while an essential feature of market economies, is inherently vulnerable to runs in all its forms (not just demand deposits). Bank regulation aims at preventing bank runs. History shows two approaches...

Local governments can provide services with their own employees or by contracting with private or public sector providers. We develop a model of this "make-or-buy" choice that highlights the trade-off between productive efficiency and the costs of contract administration. We construct a dataset...

Hurricane Katrina did massive damage because New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were not appropriately protected. Wherever natural disasters threaten, the government -- in its traditional role as public goods provider -- must decide what level of protection to provide to an area. It does so by...