We examine the interaction between vote-share contracts and learning-by-doing. Candidates for a political office are allowed to offer vote-share thresholds. The elected politician has to achieve at least this threshold value in his reelection result to remain in office for a second term. We...

Regulatory takings arise when the government adopts a regulation so restrictive of private property's use that it is tantamount to the loss an owner would suffer if the government had simply acquired it. Current American practice always offers compensation to landowners whose property is...

Defining rules politically poses the general question of which aspects of social ordering are tractable to public institutional resolution. But not all institutions emerge from the same processes of spontaneous ordering; self-interest subject to market discipline looks very different than...

James Buchanan advocated the market mechanism for allocating resources because it is based on voluntary exchange. People engage in market transactions only when they believe they benefit from doing so. Buchanan depicted the political process the same way. People engage in collective activities...