This paper examines the economic implications of the definition of public use advanced by the Supreme Court in the case of Kelo v. New London. In its ruling, the Court asserted that the Fifth Amendment public use requirement is satisfied if the taking in question, even if for private ends,...

This paper examines how high cost mortgage lending varies by race and ethnicity. It uses a unique panel data that matches a representative sample of mortgages in seven large metropolitan markets between 2004 and 2008 to public records of housing transactions and proprietary credit reporting...

Greater trial delay is commonly associated with decreasing demand for trials, thereby bringing about an equilibrium for a given trial capacity. This note highlights that – in contrast to this premise – trial delay may in fact increase trial demand. Such an outcome is established for a...

We use novel historical data on economics and social rights from the constitutions of 195 countries and an instrument variable strategy to answer two important questions. First, do economic and social rights provisions in constitutions reduce poverty? Second, does the strength of constitutional...

In a multi-country world, currencies do not move in isolation, and competitors’ exchange rate movements may help or hurt an exporting firm. Motivated by this fact, I construct a multi-country model to examine how export prices are affected by movements in own-currency and cross-currency...

This essay examines the historiography of two episodes in history – the scattering of plots in the open fields in the Middle Ages and the transition to the factory system in the Industrial Revolution – to shed light on the uses of institutional economics in economic history. In both of these...

This paper examines the macroeconomic effects of asset price bubbles and crashes in an overlapping generations economy. The model highlights the effects of asset price fluctuations on labor supply decisions, and demonstrates how labor market adjustment can help propagate the effects of these...

We examine project selection decisions of …rms constrained in the number of projects they can handle at once. Taking on a project requires a commitment of uncertain duration, restricting the …rm from selecting another project in subsequent periods. Due to the capacity constraints and need for...

This essay discusses the use of economic models for understanding law. It begins by describing the nature of economic models in general, and then turns to the specific application of economic models to law. The discussion distinguishes between “economic analysis of law”— which concerns the...

We use the Johansen cointegration approach to assess the empirical validity of the purchasing power parity (PPP) between the UK and the Euro Area, which we represent by Germany, the largest of its members. We conduct the empirical analysis in the context of the global financial crisis that began...