We track IBM's approach to software production and commercialization between 1950 and the present. We find that in the 1950s IBM followed what today would be called an open-source model - its software source code was open, free of charge, and written collaboratively with its users. By the mid...

While the "cashless society" has not yet fully become a reality, payment choices by consumers and merchants have been moving the U.S. economy in that direction slowly and steadily over the past five decades. In this study, a companion paper to Garcia-Swartz (2006a) in this volume, we lay out the...

Ever since the first general-purpose charge card debuted in the early 1950s, pundits have been predicting the "cashless society". Over fifty years later, we may finally be getting close to that vision. This study is the first to examine empirically the move toward a cashless society using a...

On the basis of anecdotes centered on the alleged "circuitous routing of checks," researchers focusing on the pre-Fed check-clearing system have usually argued that it was inefficient. In this paper we study a 1910 check remittance register from the State National Bank of Bloomington,...

In this paper we summarize the motivations for enacting the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) and provide a brief description of its provisions. We then turn to the controversy over TRIA's extension. Multiple views over the role of government in terrorism insurance have been expressed in both...

In this paper, the authors trace the evolution of the literature on terrorism insurance from its beginnings in the post-World War II era through to the present debate over international terrorist events in the new millennium. As part of that review, they examine the efficacy of programs...

Ever since the first general-purpose charge card debuted in the early 1950s, pundits have been predicting the cashless society. Over fifty years later, we may finally be getting close to that vision. This study is the first to examine empirically the move toward a cashless society using a...