We examine applications to the Oklahoma Saferoom Initiative, which offered rebates to residents for construction of an in-home tornado shelter. Markets for risk mitigation are prone to market failure because consumers treat low probability, high consequence events as zero probability events....

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that entrepreneurs are motivated not only by the desire to maximize profits but also by the desire for mastery. It then attempts to analyze the implications of mastery seeking for the economics and politics of government privileges and favors for...

Caplan and Stringham (2002) attempt to rebut the “paradox of cooperation” (Cowen and Sutter 1999) as it applies to libertarian anarchy. The paradox in the context of anarchy implies that if private defense agencies can cooperate to avoid conflict they can also collude to reestablish...

An ongoing debate has been occurring within public choice for over a decade concerning the efficiency of democracy. Virginia Political Economy holds that political markets perform very differently from traditional markets. Chicago Political Economy, exemplified by the work of Becker and Wittman,...

Using papers published in 2003 and 2004, we measure the extent of math-free research in top economics journals. Of more than 1200 papers published in ten top journals, six percent met a weak criterion of math-free, three percent an intermediate criterion, and only 1.5 percent a strong criterion....

Concern over the cost of excessive media coverage has increased in recent years. This paper offers an explanation of excessive coverage as an application of the tragedy of the commons, resulting from a lack of property rights over a story. News organizations consider only their private costs in...

Outlines the theory of public choice (i.e. the equilibrium of a formal political model based on functions: not politicians) and identifies some reasons why US politicians may actually vote for rent seeking (“pork barrel”) projects. Suggests that they include the need for election, campaign...