Can self-governance emerge in new and unfamiliar contexts, be restored following a sustained period of government control or provision, and exhibit resiliency in extreme disruption? Economic arguments for regulation, state provision of a good or service, and welfare state programs are often...

Can elites with access to governing institutions be constitutionally constrained? Effective constitutional constraints must be self-enforcing. This represents a substantial barrier to economic development, especially when elites control governing institutions. This paper analyzes how late Middle...

While the primary causes of the 2007-8 financial crisis are disputed, many economists hold that the monetary policy missteps played a role in causing or prolonging the financial crisis. In light of the perceived failure of monetary orthodoxy, monetary models are being theoretically refined and...

How has the impact of wars affected our historical understanding of U.S. economic performance? While most economists believe the Federal Reserve has improved performance, the existing literature fails to account for exogenous shocks such as periods of war. This paper compares U.S. economic...

Even notable free market scholars in the 20th Century lamented the inescapable decline in intimate social relations that would emerge from the wide-scale adoption of an extended market order. This paper challenges this view that markets erode social relations by challenging the concept that the...

An EF-5 Tornado struck Joplin, MO on May 22, 2011, leaving a twenty mile long path of destruction in its wake. An estimated 7,500 homes and over 500 businesses were damaged or destroyed, with damage estimated at up to $3 billion. Joplin has seen a rapid recovery despite the extensive damage. The...

The failure of economic central planning in the Soviet Union is interpreted as evidence of the impossibility of efficient central planning. But the deficiencies of the Soviet economy might have resulted from other factors, such as Soviet history, culture, leadership, and/or unique circumstances,...

This paper provides a theoretical description for the adoption of turn-taking in office where two or more individuals are elected to a committee to serve individual terms for the same public office, with the exclusive right to exercise the public office rotating, exclusively, among the members...

Can an electorate use the projected life expectancy of a lifetime-appointed executive to enforce binding, informal term limits? Informal term limits, based on the life expectancy of an executive candidate at election, would enable an electorate to exercise discretion in adjusting tenure lengths...

Alabama has been traveling down a fiscally unsustainable road. The burden of unchecked fiscal irresponsibility will ultimately fall on taxpayers, making Alabama an unattractive location for residency or business. This path has led Alabama to a crossroads, one where the choice is to continue down...