We use public choice theory to explain the failure of FEMA and other governmental agencies to carry out effective disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The areas in which we focus are: (1) the tragedy of the anti-commons resulting from layered bureaucracy, (2) a type-two error policy...

Over the past decade, policymakers and scholars have devoted increasing attention to the nature and role of social capital in the functioning of society. We examine the implications of government attempts to manipulate the existing structure of social capital to create homogeneity among agents....

This paper explores the role of media in economic development. In particular, we seek to outline the conditions under which the media contributes to the successful adoption of policies aimed at economic progress. Our core thesis is that successful economic development requires the coordination...

This paper investigates the impact of media freedom on citizens' political knowledge and participation. I find that media freedom has a large, positive and statistically significant effect on individuals' political knowledge, political participation, and voter turnout. The more government...

This paper investigates the effect of state contract enforcement on international trade. I estimate a gravity model of bilateral trade using panel data that covers 157 countries over the last 50 years. I find that state enforcement increases trade between nations - but less impressively than its...

Can anarchy be efficient? This paper argues that for reasons of efficiency, rational, wealth-maximizing agents may actually choose statelessness over government in some cases. Where markets are sufficiently thin, or where government is prohibitively costly, anarchy is the efficient mode of...

Is it possible to trade with bandits? When government is absent the superior strength of some agents makes it cheaper for them to violently steal what they desire from weaker agents than to use trade to obtain what they want. Such was the case with middlemen who interacted with producers in late...

Institutionally dependent payoffs determine the direction of entrepreneurial alertness and efforts. In order to understand the plight of developing countries, it is critical to understand that it is not a lack of entrepreneurship that is the problem, but rather the institutional context...

Self-enforcing arrangements are crucial to the study of African political econmy. The weakness of formal governance in much of Africa makes understanding informal institutions of cooperation particularly important. I consider the application of self-enforcing arrangements, like those described...

In this paper I identify fractionalization as a consequence rather than solely a cause of poor institutions. I investigate how heterogeneous agents in precolonial Africa relied on social distance-reducing signals to make trade with one another possible. I then show how colonial institutions...