We examine whether economic and military competence of political leaders affect their duration in office. We introduce leader heterogeneity in the selectorate theory of Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003) and derive the hypothesis that in the presence of a revolutionary threat, economic competence...

This paper studies the creation of property rights in a state of anarchy and in the presence of uncertainty about a potential appropriator's ability. In a game of conflict, securing property can be achieved by spending resources for protection. We show that secure property rights will never...

This paper incorporates the interdisciplinary New Institutional and Transaction Costs Economics and suggests a holistic framework for analysis of management agro-ecosystem services. That new approach for analyses and assessment of management of agro-ecosystem services includes: definition of the...

We apply a fallback model of coalition formation to decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, focusing on the seven natural courts, which had the same members for at least two terms, between 1969 and 2009. The predictions of majority coalitions on each of the courts are generally bourn out by the 5-4...

Earlier research discussed the necessary evolution from smart business networks, as based on process need satisfaction and governance, into business genetics [1] based on strategic bonds or decay and opportunistic complementarities. This paper will describe an approach and diffusion algorithms...

We describe a simple 2-stage mechanism that induces two bargainers to be truthful in reporting their reservation prices in a 1st stage. If these prices criss-cross, the referee reports that they overlap, and the bargainers proceed to make offers in a 2nd stage. The average of the 2nd-stage...

Why is good good and bad bad? Kant's categorical imperative (KCI) and instrumental rationality are analyzed under the game-theoretical framework of the folk theorem. Prescribing different courses of action under the one-shot game, Kant's categorical imperative emerges as instrumentally rational...

This paper shows that peer pressure may lead to dynamic convergence to a norm that is skewed with respect to preferences in society, yet is endogenously upheld by the population. Moreover, a skewed norm will often be more sustainable than a representative norm. This may explain the skewness of...

The paper re-examines the idea that a family can be viewed as a community governed by a self-enforcing constitution, and extends existing results in two directions. First, it identi?es circumstances in which a constitution is renegotiation-proof. Second, it introduces parental altruism. The...