It is widely believed today that the free market is the best mechanism ever invented to efficiently allocate resources in society. Just as fundamental as faith in the free market is the belief that government has a legitimate and competent role in policing and the punishment arena. This curious...

In this paper I portray "neo-liberalism" in its original conceptual meaning as opposed to the generic term of depreciation as which it is commonly used. I identify fair competition and the denial of all privilege as the major concerns of original neo-liberals. Ethical merit for competition...

This paper relates the political decision-process which allowed Germany to transform its planned economic system into a Social Market Economy after the Second WorldWar. The central problem of the paper is to understand how the Social MarketEconomy emerged in Germany. Was it primarily an imported...

Using a new set of micro evidence from an original survey of 28 transition countries, we show that democracy increases citizens' support for the market by guaranteeing income redistribution to inequality-averse agents. Our identification strategy relies on the restriction of the sample to...

This new collection critically examines the new global policy of 'good governance'. This catchphrase of aid policy and development thinking has been the subject of too little analysis to date. This book redresses the balance. It places the prefix 'good', and exactly what that means, under the...

Using Adam Smith's notion of an 'invisible hand', this extraordinary contribution identifies dogmatic versus pragmatic views of free markets. Published posthumously, with new contributions by Rod O'Donnell, Daniel B. Klein and Christopher Torr, this book outlines Mittermaier's main thesis and...