Identification forms a key part of all but the least sophisticated economic and political transactions. More complex or significant transactions demand more formal identification of the parties involved. In this paper we develop an institutional as well as a public choice theory of identity. We...

We introduce the proto-entrepreneur as an economic agent who must first — i.e., before acting entrepreneurially — coordinate non-price information with others in order to reveal exploitable opportunities. Entrepreneurship, therefore, involves dual economic discovery problems, each of which...

Blockchains have enabled innovation in distributed economic institutions, such as money (e.g. cryptocurrencies) and markets (e.g. DEXs), but also innovations in distributed governance, such as DAOs, and new forms of collective choice. Yet we still lack a general theory of blockchain governance....

Bitcoin disrupted money, and smart contracting technology and digital assets are further disrupting finance. Blockchain trade platforms are disrupting global supply chains. But the biggest disruption that blockchain might bring is to disrupt government. Government is an institutional technology...

This paper investigates a competitive evolutionary process we call ‘innovation overshooting’ in equipment-based sports, using windsurfing as a case study. New sports, in particular equipment-based lifestyle sports, can experience a rapid rise in popularity but eventually technology-driven...

Blockchains are an institutional technology for facilitating decentralised exchange. As open-source software, anybody can develop their own blockchain, ‘fork’ an existing blockchain, or stack a new blockchain on top of an existing one - creating a new environment for exchange with its own...

This chapter uses economic theory to explore the implications of the blockchain technology on the future of banking. We apply an economic analysis of blockchains based on both new institutional economics and public choice economics. Our main focus is on the economics of why banks exist as...

Claims blockchain is more than just ICT innovation, but facilitates new types of economic organization and governance. Suggests two approaches to economics of blockchain: innovation-centred and governance-centred. Argues that the governance approach — based in new institutional economics and...