The purpose of this paper is to report on experiments that test for an independent effect of bicameralism on legislative stability. The experiments are designed to test the theory of the bicameral core (Hammond and Miller 1986), which demonstrates that a bicameral legislature is more apt to have...

Our analysis shows that in entering a new market a firm should not just focus its attention on the price that the market awards to a pioneer, or the tradeoff between first mover advantages and disadvantages. It should also consider the adverse consequences of being laggard.

Price protection is a commonly used practice between manufacturers and retailers in the personal computer (PC) industry motivated by drastic declines of product values during the product life cycle. It is a form of rebate given by the manufacturer to the retailer for units unsold at the...

This article presents theory and evidence regarding the organization of financial exchange markets. It derives conditions under which (1) a member-owned exchange has a monpoly over the trade of a particular financial contract and its close substitutes, and (2) exchange members earn economic rents.

Although there has been extensive research on the economic functions of financial exchanges and the properties of prices determined on exchanges, there has been little research on the organizational structure and governance of these exchanges. This article demontrates that the heterogeneity of...

In a Walres-debreu world, all relevant attributes of all traded commodities are completely and costlessly specified, information is symmetric and costless, and all contracts ate costlessly enforced. In the real world in which trade takes place, it is costly to specify and verify commodity...

Although economists usually support the unrestricted entry of firms into an industry, entry may lower welfare if there are setup costs or if entrants have a cost disadvantage. We consider the welfare effects of entry within a standard Cornot model where some of an incumbent firm's costs are sunk.

The number of private bills passed in a year represents the extent with which Congress wants to make administrative decisions instead of delegating these decisions to the bureaucracy. Scandalous behavior by Coongresspersons has affected the number of private bills by changing the voter's belief...