We are now in the midst of what will likely be the most serious economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression. This essay considers how we got into this mess, what responsibility government bears in allowing this to happen, and what the history of the Great Depression tells us about...

Much of economic theory has been guided by a methodology that, in its more enthusiastic moments, seems to glorify the irrelevance of empirical research on how people actually behave (see, e.g, Selten, 1998). In this light it is not surprising that with one or two important exceptions,...

The attempt to explain rule variation using rational choice models faces serious problems. An important range of phenomena, such as cooperation, cartels, and more generally the rules which organize economic activity, may need to be approached on a case-by-case basis. This necessitates the...

The heuristics and bias program has generated a body of striking experimental results that all serious students of human behavior need to address. It has increased our receptivity to what can be learned from experimental methods. And it has introduced into our vocabulary the important concept of...

The key to the development of manufacturing in antebellum Massachusetts is to be found not in newly available technological or organizational blueprints in the manufacturing sector, not in changes in tariff policies, and not in demand shifts (although all of these many have contributed to some...

Virtually all sectors of the nineteenth-century American economy were less capital-intensive than their British counterparts. This resulted from persistently higher American interest/profit rates, due in turn to American land abundance. The paper adduces the evidence in support of these...