Using the political-economic history of the development of telephony during the 1870s as a backdrop, this paper studies a two-player Tullock contest that includes both research effort (R&D) and legal effort (i.e., rent-seeking effort). The two types of efforts complement each other and...

This paper presents an extension of the two-period Samaritan's Dilemma in order to analyze the potential for foreign aid to promote freedom. An example is the United States' recent opening towards Cuba. It is shown that a donor nation's dual concern for economic reforms and greater freedoms can...

We derive the Green Golden Rule (GGR) in the Habit Formation (HF) and Anticipation of Future Consumption (AFC) frameworks. Since consumption is the key variable of GGR, time non-separabilities in preferences over consumption streams, given by the AFC and HF, may have important impacts on the...

This paper provides insights into the apparent seesaw between the generation of theoretical versus empirical economics research over time. A dynamic model considers the incentives of researchers to focus on empirical versus theoretical papers. It yields the main characteristics of the...