Step right up! Get your tickets for WTF?! An Economic Tour of the Weird! This rollicking tour through a museum of the world's weirdest practices is guaranteed to make you say, "WTF?!" Did you know that "preowned" wives were sold at auction in nineteenth-century England? That today, in Liberia,...

Cover -- Tour Stops -- Waiting in the Lobby -- 1. Your Favorite Acronym -- 2. Burn, Baby, Burn -- 3. FSBO: Like-New, Preowned Wife -- 4. Public Uses for Private Parts -- 5. God Damn -- 6. Chicken, Please -- Hold the Poison -- 7. Jiminy Cricket's Journey to Hell -- 8. Fighting Solves Everything...

Your favorite acronym -- Burn, baby, burn -- FSBO : like-new, preowned wife -- Public uses for private parts -- God damn -- Chicken, please; hold the poison -- Jiminy Cricket's journey to hell -- Fighting solves everything

In the late 1720s Caribbean piracy was brought to a screeching halt. An enhanced British naval presence was partly responsible for this. But most important in bringing pirates to their end was a series of early 18th-century legal changes that made it possible to effectively prosecute them. This...

Two collective action problems plague successful revolution. On the one hand, would-be revolutionaries confront a quot;participation problemquot; whereby no rationally self-interested individual has an incentive to participate in rebellion. On the other hand, individuals face a quot;first-mover...

Today monks are known for turning the other cheek, honoring saints, and blessing humanity with brotherly love. But for centuries they were known equally for fulminating their foes, humiliating saints, and casting calamitous curses at persons who crossed them. Clerics called these curses...