Licensing requirements for US private security firms and guards differ substantially from state to state. State regulatory institutions for this industry also vary considerably. Some states have specialized regulatory boards with industry personnel (guards, firm owners) and/or public police as...

Many goods and services produced by government bureaus are sold at prices which do not maximize net revenues (maximize profits or minimize losses). Indeed, bureaucratic institutions typically create incentives to expand production beyond that which would maximize net revenues. Furthermore, many...

Merchants broke the bonds of localized political constraints during the tenth and eleventh centuries to establish the constitutional foundations of international commercial law as we see it today. The medieval “Law Merchant” was an international legal system that governed without the...

The conflict over scarce resources in the Hobbesian jungle may be avoided if rules of obligation delineating property rights develop along with institutions of governance. One possibility is a “duress contract” as the strongest individual threatens others who agree to enslavement. Thus,...

An economy may remain robust in the face of efficiency-inhibiting state-made rules if individuals are able to establish effective sources of credibility that do not rely on the state. After explaining how non-state sources of trust and private recourse evolve to enhance credibility, examples of...

Economic studies using aggregate data generally find that higher taxes are the most effective policy to reduce drunk driving while criminologists report strong evidence supporting law enforcement measures in policy evaluations. This paper evaluates these differing perspectives using the...