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 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...

This study constructs a large new dataset to investigate whether state policy led to ethnic Ukrainians experiencing higher mortality during the 1932–33 Soviet Great Famine. All else equal, famine (excess) mortality rates were positively associated with ethnic Ukrainian population share across...

This paper provides an explanation for the lack of profit-maximizing governments and for widespread use of more or less representative forms of local governance based on economic, rather than political, considerations. The analytical part of the paper suggests that profit-maximizing governments...

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...

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...

The political economy of medieval Europe was shaped by alliances between lords and vassals, forged through peaceful and violent means. We model coalition formation through bargaining or by conquest, and where members can rebel against their coalition. We derive conditions under which a realm...

The history of Spain is not usually associated with liberalism or constitutional innovation by most English or American historians. This paper provides a brief history of the rise of liberalism in Spain and uses the Constitution of 1812 as a window into the political liberalism of Spain in the...

Federalism is commonly thought to be a pro-liberty system of government, in contrast to a unitary system. Within a unitary system, people face but a single government that taxes and regulates. Within federal systems, however, people face two or more governments that tax and regulate. In light of...