This article considers the applicability of "moral economy" theories to early modern land markets. It asks whether moral norms -- specifically, moral condemnation of land selling -- substantially impeded land alienation in several major early modern economies: China, England, and Japan....

"Solving Social Dilemmas demonstrates that social, political, and economic progress occur when ethical dispositions evolve in a manner that solves or ameliorate social dilemmas. That same process can account for the emergence of prosperous societies in the West during the late nineteenth and...