Under caveat emptor, buyers effect their measurements prior to exchange. Long-term relationships and contracts allow buyers to measure commodities at consumption. Buyers use subjective measurements in long-term relations. Contractual guarantees shift enforcement to the state, but require...

Contract stipulations tend to be subject to commodity standards. Standards make it clearer what transactors have agreed upon. They also bring stipulations from different contracts under a common denominator. The lower the cost of measuring an attribute and the wider the range of its application,...

We explore the relationship between voting rights and taxation in medieval England and France. We hypothesize that voting was a wealth-enhancing institution formed by the ruler in order to facilitate profitable joint projects with subjects. We predict when voting rights and tax payments will be...

We treat information acquisition by potential investors in initial public offerings as endogenous. With endogenous information, the critical question is why underwriters would allow investors to spend resources acquiring superior information intended solely to effect a wealth transfer. We show...

Contract stipulations tend to be subject to commodity standards. Standards make it clearer what transactors have agreed upon. They also bring stipulations from different contracts under a common denominator. The lower the cost of measuring an attribute and the wider the range of its application,...

We distinguish between discovery information and private foreknowledge in the valuation of initial public offerings of corporate securities. An underwriter gathers discovery information to value and price the issue. The issuing firm relies on this information to make the optimal investment...

Thirty years ago, "The Problem of Social Cost" (1960) was published. It transformed the field of industrial organization and greatly expanded its scope. The authors briefly survey the state of the field before 1960 and then show some of the ways by which Ronald Coase's paper changed economic...

Increased standardization was a by-product of technical innovations during the Industrial Revolution. An unfortunate side effect of standardization was enhanced opportunities for theft and embezzlement. Two significant modern institutions radically evolved during the eighteenth to mid-nineteenth...