The proposition that constitutional rules serve as permanent, fixed points of interaction are challenged by observations of contestable rule amendment and the emergence of de facto authority. This observation not only applies to conventional political constitutions, but to the fundamental rules...

We collect data from Hong Kong’s foremost news media outlets’ Facebook pages from 2019 to 2020 to examine clashes of opinion on the social media platform. We find that specific writing habits signify users’ backgrounds and elicit group segregation cues from readers. An increase in...

Blockchain technology makes it more feasible for individuals to Exit political-socioeconomic systems at the level of the system itself and elect to accede freely to institutional systems which formulate, promulgate, keep and verify institutions and public records without a centralised authority....

This chapter reviews the theory of the voluntary public and private redistribution of wealth elaborated by economic analysis in the last forty years or so. The central object of the theory is altruistic gift-giving, construed as benevolent voluntary redistribution of income or wealth. The theory...

In its 2018 introduction and subsequent work, Quadratic Funding (QF) emerged as a uniquely optimal design for the democratic provision of public goods under the assumption of atomized participants with perfect rationality. In this paper, we aim to move past this rational and atomized portrayal...

This paper proposes an analysis of the emergence and evolution of institutional frameworks. It explains the causes, process, and outcome of institutional evolution. We first describe the institutional framework as a multilevel system at the bottom of which several “local and flexible”...

This paper proposes an analysis of the emergence and evolution of institutional frameworks. It explains the causes, process, and outcome of institutional evolution. We first describe the institutional framework as a multilevel system at the bottom of which several “local and flexible”...

Impersonal exchange has been a major driver of economic development. But transactors with no stake in maintaining an ongoing relationship have little incentive to honor deals. Therefore, all economies have developed institutions to support honest trade and realize the gains of impersonal...