This paper argues that there are two tiers of entrepreneurship important for economic development. One is concerned with investments in productive technologies that improve productivity and better service consumer needs. The other is concerned with the creation of protective technologies that...

This article investigates the internal governance institutions of violent criminal enterprise by examining the law, economics, and organization of pirates. To effectively organize their banditry, pirates required mechanisms to prevent internal predation, minimize crew conflict, and maximize...

Standard theory neglects that enacting price discrimination is costly to firms. When this costliness is accounted for, perfect price discrimination is often socially inefficient. For pure monopolists it is sometimes socially inefficient. For monopolistic competitors it is always socially...

According to conventional wisdom, state-provided contract enforcement is critical to an expansive, growing trade. This paper estimates state enforcement's impact on international trade for one hundred and fifty-seven countries over the last half a century. I find that state enforcement increases...

We apply Leeson and Dean’s (2009) method for studying democratic dominoes to capitalist spillovers to compare the rates at which capitalism and democracy spread between countries. We find that capitalism and democracy spread at approximately the same modest rate.

I argue that medieval judicial ordeals accurately assigned accused criminals’ guilt and innocence. They did this by leveraging a medieval superstition called iudicium Dei (judgments of God). According to that superstition, God condemned the guilty and exonerated the innocent through...