Facing the sanctions from the West since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia quickly converged to a strong counter-sanction strategy. The US and the EU staggered the strengths of sanctions in turns, with the EU first imposing relatively stronger commercial sanctions first and the US...

The value of many goods and many social and legal norms and institutions is correlated to the number of people who adopt them, in other words: They exhibit network effects. But while harmonization enhances network benefits, it also diminishes the benefits derived from variety. In the first part...