What does the reality of political bargains imply for the sustainability of constitutions enshrining procedural liberalism? I explore this question by taking a catallactic, or transactional, view of politics. I claim that the economic way of thinking — purposive behavior and exchange activity...

Markets create material prosperity. But does that increase in wealth come with a spiritual cost? The Eastern Orthodox Church has long maintained a tradition of thought that is skeptical about wealth and warns of the effect it may have on the state of one’s soul. More recently, some...

I criticize contractarian approaches to political economy that assume the insularity of constitutions from ordinary political exchange. Using tools from market process economics, I outline a theory of the political-entrepreneurial process as applied to constitutions. This theory can help us...

The law and economics of space policy has recently become an important research area. In this paper I contribute to the literature on legal frameworks for outer space activities, and specifically space settlement. Article II of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty forbids the extension of state...

How should judges reason in a well-ordered constitutional democracy? John Rawls answered they ought to do so in accordance with public reason. We show this requirement is correct but inadequate. It permits too many disparate principles of constitutional interpretation. Intriguingly, Rawls...

Since Hayek's pioneering work in the 1930's, the Austrian business cycle theory has been presented as a disequilibrium theory populated by less-than-perfectly rational agents. In contrast, we maintain that (1) the Austrian business cycle theory is consistent with rational expectations and (2)...

This paper makes a simple but underappreciated point: due to the open-ended nature of constitutional entrepreneurship, the personal characteristics of constitutional entrepreneurs — intellect, will, virtues and vices, etc. — directly bear on constitutional change. The paper demonstrates this...

I explore how political property rights to revenues from governance relate to generality norms in governance. I do so by examining the rise of Western constitutional liberalism from the perspective of property rights economics and political economy. While it is true that Western political...

This paper applies the logic of economic calculation to the actions of autocrats. We model autocrats as stationary bandits who use profit and loss calculations to select institutions that maximize their extraction rents. We find in many cases autocrats achieve rent maximization through creating...