What is pollution? According to Peter H. Aranson, “Public policy regards as pollution any man-made or naturally occurring substance (for example, smoke or sewage) or condition (for exam- ple, noise, heat, or radiation) that is believed to threaten human health or economic welfare...

In this paper I will focus on risk controversies of a familiar type: Someone in one locale is concerned about being seriously injured as a result of human activities carried on elsewhere. The discussion will be limited to risks that are unintentional in the sense that no one is deliberately...

We examine a stark setting in which security or protection can be provided by self-governing groups or by for-profit entrepreneurs (kings, kleptocrats, or mafia dons). Though selfgovernance is best for the population, it faces problems of long-term viability. Typically, in providing security the...

Ancient Greece was wealthy enough to invent many of the foundations of Western Civilization. In order to accomplish this, they had to avoid the trap of dissipating wealth through continuous feuding. We contend that the ancient Olympics was one, of several, institutions that helped achieve this...

This paper focuses on how to deal with environmental problems, through the lenses of the New Institutional Economics. The emphasis is on the intertwined role of organizational solutions and their institutional settings. This is not to say that technological solutions to environmental problems...

The extraordinary influence of The Problem of Social Cost" is now well acknowledged. Beyond the official recognition coming with the award of the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences as well as the myriad citations, what may matter most, as emphasized by Mary Shirley (2013), is that...

This paper argues that mainstream economic theory, far from providing an indisputable plea in favor of shareholder value-maximization, offers striking arguments showing quite the opposite : profit-maximization cannot be a legitimate goal for private firms. This opens the door for a widening of a...

This article explains the level of economic freedom in Muslim countries through the theory of institutional path dependency. Islamic countries are generally not free and they have a poor record regarding property rights. To explain these realities we use the institutional history of Muslim...

This paper investigates a relationship between economic governance and the dual objectives of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs): poverty reduction and financial viability. Using an unbalanced panel of 531 MFIs the important role of other institutions such as country-level business registry...

This paper investigates a relationship between economic governance and the dual objectives of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs): poverty reduction and financial viability. Using an unbalanced panel of 531 MFIs the important role of other institutions such as country-level business registry...