This paper models the assignment of residual income claimancy to an R&D manager and applies the model to biotechnology firms. Residual income claimancy provides incentives for the manager to monitor the R&D process. Because the nature of R&D and of monitoring scientific effort is different, our...

School choice initiatives and charter schools have grown substantially in the past two and a half decades. Economists argue that this is a move toward more competition and should lead to improved school system performance. However, school choice and charter school enabling laws can be quite...

Analysts have considered what might check the 20th century growth in government, thereby avoiding Leviathan and economic collapse. We develop a model where political economy equilibrium pushes the economy to the brink of collapse, but rising marginal welfare costs may prevent collapse. For small...

Kentucky’s K-12 experienced an 81% in increase in per pupil funds, after inflation, from 1990 to 2019. However, there have been only modest changes in its nationally-administered test scores, and no increases in the past decade. Moreover, per pupil funding seems to exceed that of all but the...

We examine national trends in educational funding, test score outcomes, and productivity as well as variations in funding and test scores over time and across states to assess how changes in educational spending are (or are not) related to changes in educational test score outcomes for states....

This paper considers use of employment contracts versus commercial contracts for the exchange of labor services. Those workers selling their services via the former contract are employees and those using the latter are independent contractors. Following the legal distinction between the two...

This paper discusses how economic systems can be described by the manner that property rights are allocated to individuals, to the government, or to interests groups. Property rights entail control of use of assets, claim on the net income from an asset, and transferability of the previous two....