This paper explores James Buchanan's contributions to monetary economics and argues these contributions form the foundation of a robust monetary economics paradigm. While often not recognized for his contributions to monetary economics, Buchanan's scholarship offers important insights for...

The declining financial health of public pension systems is increasingly becoming a budget concern for many state and local governments. While the academic literature has identified several factors behind the growth in unfunded state and local public pension liabilities, there is mixed evidence...

We assess the impact of two groups of economists; mainline economists, who regard economics primarily as the science of exchange and mainstream economists, who perceive economics primarily as the science of choice. To control for scholarly quality we investigate the citation impact of Nobel...

We supplement the existing empirical literature on Fed independence with a contextualized episodic history to corroborate the empirical literature and inform future studies. We examine the postwar Fed to focus on the ability of the Fed to forge a monetary path independent of political influence...

Attempting to find the technically optimal monetary policy is futile if the Federal Reserve's independence is undermined by political influences. F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and James Buchanan each sought ways to improve the performance of the Federal Reserve. They each ended up rejecting the...

Payday lenders have increasingly received public and regulatory scrutiny. By their nature, payday lenders are in the business of providing short-term, unsecured loans to financially vulnerable individuals, often with high financing fees that amount to triple-digit annual percentage rates (APR)....

During a time when religious animosities were reaching their peak in Medieval Europe leading up to the violent crusades, Christians, Jews, and Muslims residing in close proximity in Medieval Spain experienced a period of relative peace, prosperity, and cultural exchange. This historical episode,...

How do political environments influence the behavior of economists who transition from academic and business environments to policymaking positions? And, more specifically, are an economist's preexisting beliefs and principles congruent with their policy stances and actions once they transition...

Over the course of three hundred years, the institutional organization of the Christian church evolved from small loosely organized groups meeting in house churches to a form of hierarchical organization known as monepiscopacy. Monepiscopacy denotes a form of ecclesial polity in which a single...