This paper analyzes trial by poison ingestion, or “sassywood,” as an institution of criminal justice in contemporary Liberia. We argue that effective criminal justice institutions must satisfy three conditions: they must be accessible to citizens, incentivize judicial administrators to...

This paper is the first to investigate the relationship between think tanks and economic policy empirically. We use panel data for the US states to examine state-based, free market (SBFM) think tanks’ relationship to eight key economic policy objectives. We find little evidence that SBFM think...

For over a century, English husbands sold their wives at auctions. We argue that wife sales were an institutional response to an unusual constellation of property rights in Industrial Revolution-era English law. That constellation simultaneously required most wives to obtain their husbands'...

This paper investigates the effects of state-created homogeneity on the ability of socially distant individuals to trade. I show that where the state is absent, socially distant agents adopt the customs, practices and institutions of outsiders they desire to interact with. By creating a degree...

In this paper, we examine the resiliency of community recovery after a natural disaster. We argue that a resilient recovery requires robust economic/financial institutions, political/legal institutions, and social/cultural institutions. We explore how politically and privately created disaster...

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine how productive entrepreneurial activities, such as innovation, influence unproductive entrepreneurial activities, such as regulatory rent seeking. Design/methodology/approach – To investigate the argument the authors consider Bavaria's brewing industry...

Abstract This paper investigates the economics of infamous pirate practices. Two closely related economic theories--the theory of signaling and the theory of reputation building--explain these practices. First, I examine the pirate flag, "Jolly Roger," which pirates used to signal their identity...

Media, Development, and Institutional Change investigates mass media's profound ability to affect institutional change and economic development. The authors use the tools of economics to illuminate the media's role in enabling and inhibiting political-economic reforms that promote development

This research review covers the main theories and justifications for and against state intervention as they have developed over two centuries. It also incorporates an institutional approach to the role of the state in enforcing "the rules of the game" of the economy as well as examining specific...