This paper analyzes a reputational equilibrium for inflation under the generic assumption that monetary policy reflects proximate preferences for low expected inflation and positive unexpected inflation. The paper stresses the qualitative implication that in a reputational equilibrium the...

This paper analyzes a reputational equilibrium for sovereign debt in a model in which the sovereign borrows to finance spending for defense against threats to its survival in power. In this model, the amount of sovereign debt and defense spending, the resulting survival probability, and the...

This paper considers the possible employment effects of reforming minimum-wage policy to incorporate indexation of the nominal minimum wage .The analysis assumes that both the demand for the labor services of minimum-wage workers and the setting of the nominal minimum wage rate under existing...

Although most disputes between groups of people are settled peacefully, sometimes disputes result in war. This lecture uses historical examples to illustrate how the ability to negotiate a credible peaceful settlement of a dispute between sovereign states, typically a dispute over the control of...

Why do sovereign states sometimes fail to settle territorial disputes peacefully? Also, why do even peaceful settlements of territorial disputes rarely call for the resulting border to be unfortified? This paper explores a class of answers to these questions that is based on the following...

This paper analyzes how both the value of ideas created as well as the security of intellectual property rights result from the choices of potentially creative people either to engage in creative activity or to be pirates, and from decisions of people who are engaged in creative activity to...

This paper derives a reputational equilibrum for inflation in a model in which the government obtains valuable seigniorage by issuing fiat money in echange for real resources. One insightful result is that , with contemporaneous perceptionof actual government behavior and immediate adjustment of...

Although tax policy in most historical cases has been barely distinguishable from legalized theft, why have tax and spending policies in a few unusually fortunate communities, such as some of the modern democracies, apparently been, if not welfare maximizing, at least relatively benevolent? We...

A self-enforcing constitution creates a political process that provides an alternative to civil conflict for resolving disputes among the constituent groups of the polity. This paper is concerned with discovering the conditions under which it is possible to design such a self-enforcing...

This essay analyzes current fiscal policy in the United States within an historical context. The objective is to clarify why recent developments in the United States are troubling, but also to understand why the United States, in contrast to other countries such as Italy, has so far avoided the...