A major contribution of the public-choice school is the recognition by Gordon Tullock that contestable rents give rise to social losses because of unproductive resource use. Contestable rents usually are politically assigned privileges. Contestable rents can also be found outside of government...

The theory of money typically ignores the fact that the mode of market interaction arises endogenously, and simply assumes a decentralized, bilateral exchange process. However, endogenizing the organization of trade is critical for understanding the conditions that lend themselves to the...

The demographic history of the Jews in the Middle Ages may be characterized by two main phenomena: i) a sharp drop in the number of Jews until the beginning of the modern period, due mainly to conversions; and, ii) early urbanization. Until now, these features have been analyzed as primarily...