Theory and empirics suggest that by curbing competition, incumbent electricity companies which used to be, and here are referred to as, Vertically Integrated Utilities (VIUs), can increase their profitability through combined ownership of generation and transmission and/or distribution networks....

Berg et al. (Games and Economic Behavior, 10, pp. 122–142, 1995) study trust and reciprocity in an investment setting. They find significant amounts of trust and reciprocity and conclude that trust is a guiding behavioral instinct (a “primitive†in their terminology). We modify...

Murray Rothbard's posthumous Economic Thought Before Adam Smith is notable for its vilification of 'the quiet Scottish professor.' While there is little disagreement that Smith was, at best, an ambivalent champion of free markets, Rothbard's indictment of him as a proto-Marxist is less than...