We argue that the policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic by all levels of government around the world is not consistent with recommendations from standard welfare economics. Thus, it is important to ask why such policies have been adopted. That opens the door to examining the political economy...

This paper seeks to overcome an antinomy within the theory of political economy: while market outcomes are treated as resulting from polycentric competition, political outcomes are treated as resulting from hierarchic planning. We seek to overcome this antinomy by treating political outcomes as...

The governments of American states often attempt to incentivize businesses to locate within their borders by offering targeted benefits to particular industries and companies. These benefits come in many forms, including business tax credits for investments, property tax abatements, and...

The recent financial crisis has provoked a raft of contending claims as to whether the cause of the crisis is better attributed to market failure or political failure. Such claims are predicated on a presumption that markets and polities are meaningfully separate entities. To the contrary, we...

How is rule of law established? We address this question by exploring the causal effect of increases in fiscal capacity on the establishment of well enforced, formal, legal standards in a pre-industrial economy. Between 1550 and 1700 there were over 2,000 witch trials in France. Prosecuting a...