Recent literatures on entrepreneurship and economic growth estimate the empirical relationships between the following pairs of variables: (1) institutions and entrepreneurial activity; (2) institutions and economic growth; and (3) entrepreneurship and economic growth.This paper revisits each of...

Conventional monetary theory suggests that a closed system banking regime may lead to in-concert overexpansions of circulation by its banks. However, Selgin (2001, 2010) argues that this is unlikely as long as there are enough banks to ensure (i) routine interbank settlement and (ii) no...

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...