This essay explores the nature, causes, and consequences of corruption as it pertains to entire regimes. Grand corruption is modeled as a type of unproductive rent-seeking at the highest levels of government. The economic costs of corruption are assumed to increase in the decentralization (and...

Once established, invasive species can rapidly and irreversibly alter ecosystems and degrade the value of ecosystem services. Optimal control of an exotic pest solves for a trajectory of removals that minimizes the present value of removal costs and residual damages from the remaining pest...

This paper develops a two-stage model for the optimal management of a potential invasive species. The arrival of an invasive species is modeled as an irreversible event with an uncertain arrival time. The model is solved in two stages, beginning with the post-invasion stage. In this stage, we...

It is the charge of economic history not only to explain the economic past, but to use it to enrich and develop economic theory (North, 1994). In paleoeconomics, theory plays the additional role of adding veracity of accounts based on sparse evidence through the demonstration of internal...

In poorly developed market economies, high transactions and related costs, produce a pattern of market organizations with heavy relianceon traditional institutions for handling transactions.The family is one such institution because family ties or bonds allow more efficien, tcontractual...

We argue that intergenerational neutrality has been prematurely excluded from the dialogue on sustainable growth. By incorporating Burton’s distinction between intragenerational and intergenerational discounting into a model suitable for analyzing sustainability issues, we are able to...

Sustainability science emerged from the felt need to employ appropriate science and technology in the pursuit of sustainable development. The existing sustainability science agenda emphasizes the importance of using a systems approach, stressing the many interactions between natural and human...