This paper argues that corruption patterns are endogenous to political structures. Thus, corruption can be systemic and planned rather than decentralized and coincidental. In an economic system without law or property rights, a kleptocratic state may arise as a predatory hierarchy from a state...

We consider a two-person Cournot game of voluntary contributions to a public good with identical individual preferences, and examine equilibrium aggregate welfare under a separable, symmetric and concave social welfare function. Assuming the public good is pure, Itaya, de Meza and Myles (Econ....

In this paper I consider the desirability of drugs that enhance cognitive abilities in the context of tournaments that are used as optimal labor contracts as in Lazear and Rosen (1981). Such drugs reduce the number of voluntary participants in a tournament, but increase individual and total...

We use economic theory to examine the intensity of fundamentalist sects. Leaders work to enhance their followers’ observance level. We model three stylized situations under which fundamentalist groups function, examining the intensity of observance in each. We find that, under reasonable...

This paper examines how violence in the Second Intifada influences Palestinian public opinion. Using micro data from a series of opinion polls linked to data on fatalities, we find that Israeli violence against Palestinians leads them to support more radical factions and more radical attitudes...

This paper analyzes a general-equilibrium model in which each person can choose to be either a producer or a predator. This model shows how predation breaks the link between the interpersonal distribution of productive resources and the inter-personal distribution of consumption. Specifically,...

Although institutions rooted in the folk theorem can support self-enforcing exchange in a wide variety of contexts, their potential to create cooperation is not limitless. In particular, the folk theorem may break down when some agents are physically stronger than others. I demonstrate this in...

Frey [2001] and others propose subjecting governments to competition within their jurisdiction, but classical liberals argue that having competing law enforcers cannot work. This article describes a hybrid system that relies on markets but has one law enforcement agency per region, with profit...

We consider a setting where a decision-maker has to resolve a dispute between two parties. On demand of the losing party, the decision may be subject to review by an appellate body. The decision-maker has discretionary power and may be opportunistic. Depending on the institution design,...