Until recently, economists have tended to ignore what Jack Hirshliefer calls "the dark-side way of confiscation, exploitation, and conflict." That is to say, economists have tended to ignore how societies or political regimes choose to allocate resources over productive activities and...

This paper analyzes the role of expenditures on property right protection within a standard quality ladder model of endogenous growth. We develop a model where quality of each good improves as a result of innovation. Once the innovator develops a higher quality good there is an exogenously given...