Independent central bankers and judges can both be more usefully viewed as examples of trustees than as agents. A trust is alegal insitution with rules set up by a settlor, administered by a trustee on behlaf of beneficiaries. Public trustees often are motivated more by Pride, Policy, Place and...

This paper uses the economic approach to address a recent legal quesiton involving self incrimination: what is the effect of allowing a defendant to waive his right to exclude statements he makes during plea bargaining from evidence at trial if plea bargaining fails? This was the issue in the...

Two central puzzles about social norms are now they are enforced and how they are created or modified. The sanctions for the violation of a norm can be categorized as automatic, guilt, shame, informational, bilateral-costly, and multilateral-costly. Problems in creating and modifying norms are...