Trade or raid: Acadian settlers and native Americans before 1755

Public Choice - Could North America have been settled more peacefully, with fewer property rights violations against Native Americans? To answer this question, we utilize the case of French...     

The lightship in economics

What role does government play in the provision of public goods? Economists have used the lighthouse as an empirical example to illustrate the extent to which the private provision of public goods is possible. This inquiry, however, has neglected the private provision of lightships. We investigate the private operation of the world’s first modern lightship, established in 1731 on the banks of the Thames estuary going in and out of London. First, we show that the Nore lightship was able to operate profitably and without government enforcement in the collection of payments for lighting services. Second, we show how private efforts to build lightships were crowded out by Trinity House, the public authority responsible for establishing and maintaining lighthouses in England and Wales. By including lightships into the broader lighthouse market, we argue that the provision of lighting services exemplifies not a market failure, but a government failure.     

Rent seeking for madness: the political economy of mental asylums in the United States, 1870 to 1910

Public Choice - Recent studies indicate that the ideological stances of government parties no are longer associated with differences in total government spending. At the same time, we observe that...     

Pandemics,economic freedom,and institutional trade-offs

European Journal of Law and Economics - We argue that institutions are bundles that involve trade-offs in the government’s ability to provide public goods that affect public health. We...