This paper work assesses the key aspects of a framework for research on revolutions. Our approach includes a heuristic based on an idea suggested by Marx in the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living." From this...

In this article, we study the axiomatic foundations of revealed preference theory. Let P denote the strict and R the weak revealed preference, respectively. The purpose of the paper is to show that weak, strong, and Hansson's axioms of revealed preference can be given as identities using the...

How SWB affects individual states, outcomes, or decisions is well established in the literature, but how it affects macroeconomic states, outcomes, or decisions remains an open empirical question. This paper focuses on the public policy issue of economic progress defined as either rapid economic...

The discussion of power measures and fairness concepts follows two isolated strings of thought that have rather different traditions. This paepr argues that it is exactly this restriction that confuses the discussion. By making use of the theory of power indices and Binmore's theory of justice,...

We argue that socializing is an important economic activity because it is vital to our well being, and that an important input into the activity of socializing is the set of experiences that is shared by the participants.

It has been known that, in aggregating infinite utility streams, there does not exist any social welfare function, which satisfies the axioms of Pareto, inter-generational equity and continuity. We show that the impossibility result persists even without imposing the continuity axiom, and in...

Institutions are the humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic, and social interaction. They consist of both informal constraints (sanctions, taboos, customs, traditions, and codes of conduct), and formal rules (constitutions, laws, property rights). Throughout history,...

We consider a test of expressive voting developed by Brennan and Lomasky (1993). They point out that in presidential elections the probability of a tie, and casting a decisive vote, increases 'multi-billionfold' as the election becomes increasingly close. They conjecture that if voters are...

When moving from a plurality rule to a proportional system, members of national parliament have more incentives to diverge from the median voter's preferences. We match voting behavior concerning legislative proposals of Swiss members of parliament with real referenda outcomes on the same issues...