In the late 1940s, the United States experienced a “lobotomy boom” where the use of the lobotomy expanded exponentially. We engage in a comparative institutional analysis, following the framework developed by Tullock (2005), to explain why the lobotomy gained popularity and widespread use...

In the present paper, I intend to question the broad "U-Curve Narrative" of income inequality in the United States. First, I argue that a part of the rise of inequality in recent decades is overestimated but that it did nonetheless increase. Second, I argue that a part of that increase in...

The regulation of the Canadian dairy and poultry industries through production quotas (also known as supply management) is widely believed to result in higher consumer prices that disproportionately impact poorer households. Using the most recent Survey of Labor and Income Dynamics (2011), we...

Generally, the historical literature presents the period from 1817 to 1851 in Lower Canada (modern day Quebec) as one of negative economic growth. This period also coincides with the rise of free banking in the colony. We study the effects of free banking on economic growth using theoretical and...

During the colonial era, the French colonial government in Canada experimented with paper money printed on the back of playing cards. The first experiment lasted from 1685 to 1719. In the first years, there was little inflation in spite of a rapidly expanding stock of playing card money. It is...

Generally, the historical literature presents the period from 1817 to 1851 in Lower Canada (modern day Québec) as one of negative economic growth. This period also coincides with the rise of free banking in the colony. In this paper we propose to study the effects of free banking on economic...

Coase's publication of “The Lighthouse in Economics” (1974) sparked a polarizing debate over his claim that government intervention is not necessary for the existence of a private lighthouse market. The purpose of this paper is to reframe this debate by asking the following question: why was...

A new consumer price index for Canada, 1870-1913 is constructed, which includes prices for clothing and household furnishings which were missing in previous Canadian price indexes for this period. This is important because these neglected components accounted for 10 to 15 per cent of consumers'...

What role does government play in the provision of public goods? Economists have used the lighthouse as an empirical example to illustrate the extent to which the private provision of public goods is possible. This inquiry, however, has neglected the private provision of lightships. We...

In this article, we offer a revision to the top income share series produced by Piketty and Saez (2003) for the United States, focusing upon the period prior to and including the Second World War. The inequality estimates for these years form the left-side of a century-long U-curve that has...