A successful reconstruction is characterized by a widespread coordination problem, combined with potential pockets of conflict. We analyze the array of relationships that take place in the reconstruction process – political, economic and social – by considering under what circumstances they...

Right-wing politicians sometimes can implement policies that left-wing politicians cannot, and vice versa. Contemporary wisdom has it that 'only Nixon could have gone to China.' The authors develop a model to explain this phenomenon. A policy issue could depend on information, on which every one...

Humans strive after fame, especially in politics. The authors construct a model in which the executive is motivated by fame as well as the desire to hold office. The fame of an executive is based on his or her achievements relative to all prior executives. Periods of great uncertainty for a...

Caplan and Stringham (2002) attempt to rebut the “paradox of cooperation” (Cowen and Sutter 1999) as it applies to libertarian anarchy. The paradox in the context of anarchy implies that if private defense agencies can cooperate to avoid conflict they can also collude to reestablish...

Under a variety of assumptions, subsidized bidding for creative resources fails to spur economic growth. First, under many conditions, the resource would find an optimal location in any case. Second, the bid may be good for a winning city's economy, but bad for the arts more generally. The bid...

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