This chapter explores the role of the rule of law in a market economy. The emergence of the rule of law is a precondition of not only political and economic liberty, but also economic growth and overall human progress. The presence, or lack thereof, of the rule of law determines whether human...

The in persona Christi Capitis doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church guarantees the validity of its sacraments, irrespective of the morality of the priest who performs them. While this protects their value as metacredence goods, it seemingly opens the door to opportunistic behavior by the...

We develop a theory of the supply side of art markets building on Kirzner’s understanding of entrepreneurship as alertness to profit opportunities. Whereas Kirzner’s entrepreneur is alert to the existence of resource misallocation, the artistic genius is alert to the opportunity of producing...

William J. Baumol's “Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive” has become a modern classic in development economics and political economy. With the publication of his paper, Baumol forced the economic profession to pay closer attention to the institutional structure within...

The boom in shale gas production has been accompanied by concerns that polycentricity, whereby multiple levels of government share regulatory authority, has resulted in an inefficient and ineffective governance. The Bloomington School of institutional analysis suggests otherwise. Drawing on the...

This paper identifies political property rights and jurisdictional rivalry as the fundamental dimensions to understand comparative economic and political development. After developing a general framework for the study of relative performance in the ‘market for governance', we argue that...

This paper investigates the organizational structure of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, one of the largest and most popular North American Motorcycle Gangs. Within the first few decades since their establishment, the Angels developed hierarchical organizational form, which allowed them to...

The paper argues that it is necessary to consider fracking from a political economy perspective to understand the key features of the shale boom, including why the benefits appear to exceed the costs. Several schools of thought provide insight into the performance of political-economic systems,...

Throughout history, governments have engaged in exchange with private actors. Recent work has documented the prevalence of opportunism in a number of government bounty schemes, exploring how private entrepreneurs may rook the state and hence undermine the stated aims of these programs. We draw...