Montchrétien was definitely mercantilist. He praises the ancients, their honors and their self-discipline, but notes, like Serra, that there was no concept of Political Economy in Antiquity. The words, however, appear for the first time in the pseudoaristotelian Oeconomica II, where the...

The central claim of this Article is that, as a descriptive matter, trademark legislation and court interpretation is a close normative match with the Chicago School approach of scholars such as Robert Bork and Richard Posner. The organizing intellectual structure of modern trademark law, as...

Talmudic stories are a method used by the ancient sages to teach us about ethics and morality. The stories in this paper deal with penitent (baalei teshuva) who returned to God. It is clear from these stories that it is vital for people to help others repent. One great sage even offered his...

America is in distress. We have been going from one crisis to another. Here are just a few: the savings and loan debacle which began in the 1980s; accounting fraud and financial irregularities scandals that involved such firms as Enron, Adelphia, Tyco International, Global Crossings, and led to...

Choosing the ideal occupation is not a trivial decision. The profession one chooses can affect the amount of time available for spiritual duties, one's earnings, and whether an individual remains honest. Clearly, there is a strong connection between business ethics and the occupation one...

Present market instabilities have prompted great interest on the characteristics of specific portfolios such as minimum variance and equally- weighted risk contribution portfolios as these portfolios do not rely on the estimate of expected returns. Indeed, in turmoil periods traditional market...

This paper explores the optimisation of asset allocation within “alternative” investments, i.e. between private equity and hedge funds, as well as between private equity and public equities. It uses our proprietary Portfolio Blender tool. As a preliminary step before the optimisation, we...

Volatility is usually considered as a synonym for risk. Mainstream financial theory states that higher portfolio volatility is translated into higher expected returns while diversification helps eliminate idiosyncratic risks. This leaves us with an apparent anomaly as low-risk (low-beta) stocks...

Richard Cantillon and David Hume both propose the theory of monetary non-neutrality, whereby the money supply changes through the money balances of specific individuals. Such an uneven distribution of monetary change then spreads throughout the economy step by step and changes relative prices....