I develop a robust political economy of bureaucracy by highlighting the conditions necessary for hierarchical administrative bodies to govern protectively and productively, but not predatorily. These conditions are residual claimancy and jurisdictional competition. I make this argument by...

This paper analyses the renewed scholarly interest in the Mises-Hayek, or “Austrian,” theory of the business cycle since the 2008 financial crisis. Understandably, the economics profession has broadened its search for the crises's explanation beyond the standard DSGE framework. Austrian...

The term “marketplace of ideas” is thoroughly misleading. This phrase is often used to suggest that bad ideas are “defeated” by better ideas in public discourse. In the field of economics, for example, it is commonly assumed that the mainstream, precisely because it is the mainstream,...

Private companies are growing in importance relative to governments in outer space. In the coming decades, commercial interests will play a significant role in shaping the space environment. To what extent is this increased commercial presence conducive to human welfare? This article explores...

I contribute to the literature on public entrepreneurship and management by analyzing the role of the political entrepreneur in Frederick the Great's Anti-Machiavel. Frederick the Great (Frederick II of Prussia) is best known for turning Prussia into an international power during the mid- to...

The problem of financial stability is political and institutional, rather than narrowly economic. To achieve a more resilient financial system, we need to pay attention to the incentives of actors who have the power to act discretionarily, and to the knowledge limitations of such actors in the...

I develop the idea of malignant monetary monocentricity: that contemporary central banks are systematically unlikely to deliver macroeconomic stability due to institutionally entrenched information and incentive problems. I also argue that polycentric monetary systems, best approximated by...

This paper considers the effects of changing expectations under macroeconomic policies that rely on targeting nominal variables, such as NGDP targeting. These proposals, in line with a dynamic conception of the equation of exchange, argue that the monetary authority can achieve any dynamic...

We extend the literature on ‘monetary constitutions' by arguing that binding rules must go beyond specifying the behavior of the monetary authority. Instead, a genuine monetary constitution must also be a financial constitution: it must take into account the natural and evolved links between...

In this paper I offer a novel interpretation of the challenges posed by ‘constitutional drift' — the tendency for de facto political procedures to alter when these procedures no longer are incentive-compatible for those wielding political power — for sound governance institutions, with...