Gordon Tullock’s impact as a scholar was far broader than his own research because he was an initiator of new fields of research rather than one who modestly extended pre-existing pastures. His import as founding editor of Public Choice, as an ambassador for public choice, and as a teacher,...

Licensing requirements for US private security firms and guards differ substantially from state to state. State regulatory institutions for this industry also vary considerably. Some states have specialized regulatory boards with industry personnel (guards, firm owners) and/or public police as...

Brilliant but little known, in part because his style was dense and crucial papers unpublished, Earl Thompson reformulated standard theory to achieve policy relevance, focusing on significant rent-seeking inefficiencies stemming from private information and transaction costs. Drawing on history,...

Ronald Coase’s <CitationRef CitationID="CR8">1974</CitationRef> article on lighthouses and the Trinity House case, in particular, has triggered extensive debate on the notion of a public good, but also on the possibility of private production of public goods. The resultant literature has discussed the concept of private property and the...</citationref>

We show that the optimal prize structure of symmetric n-player Tullock tournaments assigns the entire prize pool to the winner, provided that a symmetric pure strategy equilibrium exists. If such an equilibrium fails to exist under the winner-take-all structure, we construct the optimal prize...