Conventional wisdom suggests that small businesses are innovative engines of Schumpetarian growth. However, as small businesses, they are likely to face credit rationing in financial markets. If true then policies that promote lending to small businesses may yield substantial economy-wide...

We offer the first direct evidence of an implicit contract in a goods market. The evidence comes from the market for Coca-Cola. We demonstrate that the Coca-Cola Company left a written evidence of its implicit contract with its consumers — a very explicit form of an implicit contract. The...

A rough balance of political power between monarchs and a militarized landed aristocracy characterized medieval Western Europe. Scholars have argued that this balance of power contributed to a tradition of limited government and constitutional bargaining. I argue that fifth and sixth century...

In this paper we investigate the relationships between informal institutions – proxied for by measures of religiosity – and levels of entrepreneurial activity, both productive and unproductive, using cross-section U.S. state level data. In doing so, we evaluate Baumol’s (1990) conjectures...

If donor country citizens are altruistic, their support for foreign aid will be instrumental and the (perceived) effects of a donor’s aid can be enjoyed non- rivalrously by citizens of all countries. Alternatively, donor country citizens may achieve a “warm-glow” from their own...

Cover and Pecorino (2005) demonstrate, using monthly NBER reference dates, that, the March 1933 departure from the gold standard is the most probable breakpoint ushering in an era of longer expansions, both absolutely and relative to recessions that follow. Cover and Pecorino view this finding...

Why are some constitutions amended frequently and others hardly at all? An obvious candidate determinant is constitutional rigidity, i.e., the size and number of procedural barriers to amendment. Given some demand for amendment, greater rigidity implies a smaller supply. However, measures of...

The US time structure of production during the 2002 through 2009 business cycle is characterized empirically using industry-level input-output data. An industry’s total industry output requirement (TIOR) is proposed as a metric for "roundaboutness". I find that the time structure of production...