This paper concentrates on both the positive and normative effects of punishments that enforce laws to make production and consumption of particular goods illegal, with illegal drugs as the main example. Optimal public expenditures on apprehension and conviction of illegal suppliers obviously...

The methods England took to restructure its public debt during the British Financial Revolution consisted of improving liquidity. Accordingly, the State sought to reestablish its solvability by basing its debt on tax revenues as well as to homogenize it, reduce its cost and improve the operation...

The methods England took to restructure its public debt during the British Financial Revolution consisted of improving liquidity. Accordingly, the State sought to reestablish its solvability by basing its debt on tax revenues as well as to homogenize it, reduce its cost and improve the...

We point out that the two and half years of negotiation (1692-1694) between a group of investors and the English government, who led to the establishment of the Bank of England, aimed to guarantee the liquidity of a new public debt and not to establish a bank. We analyze the evolution of the...

This paper studies life cycle creativity among Nobel laureate economists. We identify two distinct life cycles of scholarly creativity. Experimental innovators work inductively, accumulating knowledge from experience. Conceptual innovators work deductively, applying abstract principles. We find...

Volatility in exchange rates is a prominent feature of open economies, a fact which has motivated elaborate attempts in many countries at exchange rate management. This paper analyzes quantitatively the welfare effects of exchange rate risk in a general two-country environment. It finds that the...

This paper examines the influence of Irving Fisher's writings on Milton Friedman's work in monetary economics. We focus first on Fisher's influences in monetary theory (the quantity theory of money, the Fisher effect, Gibson's Paradox, the monetary theory of business cycles, and the Phillips...

Hayek’s and Popper’s bibliographies, their biographies, their methodological theses in favor of individualism, their common commitment against historicism, historism and planism, and crossed references in their writings bring us to infer (at least) some intellectual debate between them, or...

The fertility of Adam Smith’s work stems from a paradoxical structure where the pursuit of economic self-interest and wealth accumulation serve wider social objectives. The incentive for this wealth accumulation comes from a desire for social recognition or "sympathy" – the need to recognise...

Utilitarianism represents a major reference to which Sen's writings refer back when it comes to the ethics of collective choices. Which utilitarianism is it; Sentham and Sidgwick's historical utilitarianism, the utilitarianism impregnated with marginal calculation a la Edgeworth, or the...