Two books coming from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum stress the endogeneity of money, in terms of both the supply of money and its origins as an institution. Comparisons with the evolution and use of language are drawn. Wray, a neo-institutionalist, stresses the fragility of the...

There is a broad range of phenomena that are categorized as "mental accounting". Some of these phenomena may be viewed as situations in which a person evaluates decisions based on the implicit assumption that the decision she makes at a given moment will be repeated many times in the future. For...

In most democracies, at least two out of any three individuals vote for the same party in sequential elections. Here I show that stands on the issues, candidates' attributes and individuals' demographics do not account for all of the persistence over time in voting decisions. I present a new...

During contarctual negotiations, but before entering a contarct, parties might make reliance expenditures. Such expenditures would increase the surplus should a contarct be made, but would wasted if not. This paper analyses parties' decisions to invest in pre-contractual reliance under...

The new decade has been called "the age of information." We show that, although information has become more accessible, the increase in the variety of products has made consumers' choices complex and uncertain. Faced with uncertainty about products' attributes offered by "umbrella brands,"...

n this paper we investigate the implementation problem arising when some of the players are ``faulty" in the sense that they fail to act optimally. The exact number and identity of the faulty players is unknown to the planner and to the nonfaulty players, but it is common knowledge that there...