Early contributions to the academic literature on free/libre and open source software (F/LOSS) movements have been directed primarily at identifying the motivations that account for the sustained and often intensive involvement of many people in this non-contractual and unremunerated productive...

My remarks focus on the relationship between monetary policy and the recent turmoil in the markets for housing, housing finance, and beyond. I begin with a review of the period leading up to the crisis. I then use this review as a basis for discussing the role of monetary policy in resolving...

In the United States, the value of child tax benefits in the federal income tax have increased dramatically since 1992 and now exceed $140 billion annually. This paper examines the efficiency implications of child tax benefits. Using a representative agent framework, it lays out conditions under...

Policy makers rely on a mix of government spending and tax cuts to address imbalances in the economy during an economic crisis. However, little discussion appears to focus explicitly on the costs of economic crises in terms of human lives, especially the lives of the most vulnerable members of...

This article studies optimal remedies in a setting in which damages vary among plaintiffs and are difficult to determine. We show that giving plaintiffs a choice between cash and coupons to purchase units of the defendant’s product at a discount — a “coupon-cash remedy” — is superior...

Compulsory licensing allows firms in developing countries to produce foreign-owned inventions without the consent of foreign patent owners. This paper uses an exogenous event of compulsory licensing after World War I under the Trading with the Enemy Act to examine the effects of compulsory...

Under the world dollar standard, a discrete appreciation by a dollar creditor country of the United States, such as China or Japan, has no predictable effect on its trade surplus. Currency appreciation by the creditor country will slow its economic growth and eventually cause deflation but...

This paper explores works which contribute to explaining market dynamics and volatility by employing models of rational but diverse beliefs. The first part gives a complete exposition of Noisy Rational Expectations (i.e. REE) Asset Pricing Theory where diversity of beliefs arises from diverse...

In the 1980s scholars began applying Positive Political Theory (PPT) to study public law. This chapter summarizes that body of research and its relationship to other schools of legal thought. Like Law and Economics, PPT of Law uses sequential game theory to examine how rules and procedures shape...

We propose the clock-proxy auction as a practical means for auctioning many related items. A clock auction phase is followed by a last-and-final proxy round. The approach combines the simple and transparent price discovery of the clock auction with the efficiency of the proxy auction. Linear...