This essay provides and economic analysis of the problem of modern-day maritime piracy. The essay first reviews the current scope of the problem, and then develops an economic of model of piracy that emphasizes the strategic interaction between the efforts of pirates to locate potential targets,...

This paper assesses the economic characteristics of the balance that federal law aims to achieve between the interests of paleontologists and amateur and commercial collectors of fossils on US federal lands. The objective function is taken to be the maximization of the social value of these...

In this paper we consider the case for assigning tax revenues to Scotland, by which we mean that taxes levied on Scottish tax bases should be returned to the Scottish budget. The budget, however, would continue to be supplemented by transfers from the Westminster budget. This arrangement differs...

We discuss the effectiveness of pegged exchange rate regimes from an historical perspective, drawing conclusions for their effectiveness today. Starting with the classical gold standard period, we point out that a succession of pegged regimes have ended in failure; except for the first, which was...

We describe the capture-to-ransom pirate business model, which is proving very successful against merchant shipping, even though the latter enjoys the protection of naval warships. We argue that failure to adequately enforce international law is symptomatic of inherent weaknesses in that law:...