Capitalism

Arrunada Seminar: Paul Dower

Updated: 2013-01-10 14:49:12

| Paul Dower | Centralized vs. Decentralized Allocation In Benito Arruñada’s insightful new book, Institutional Foundations of Impersonal Exchange: Theory and Policy of Contractual Registries, the widespread failure of titling programs in developing countries is used as motivation for a greater appreciation of the role of contractual registries. In many developing countries, immovable assets, especially [...]

Arrunada Seminar: Giorgio Zanarone

Updated: 2013-01-09 07:40:31

| Giorgio Zanarone | The Contracts behind Contracting Benito Arruñada’s “Institutional Foundations of Impersonal Exchange” is an important book in many ways. It develops a unified theory of property and business registries. It provides the reader with deep historical and institutional analyses that make the theory compelling. And it discusses paths for the reform of [...]

Arrunada Seminar: Nuno Garoupa

Updated: 2013-01-07 15:12:44

| Nuno Garoupa | From the Washington Consensus to Arruñada’s Institutional Foundations of Impersonal Exchange Since the Washington Consensus and the deregulation movement took place thirty years ago, administrative simplification and reduction of bureaucracy has been on the agenda of policymakers. In fact, economists tended to agree that a strongly market-based approach requires an effective [...]

Arrunada Seminar: Amnon Lehavi

Updated: 2013-01-04 09:17:11

| Amnon Lehavi | Economics, Property Rights, and Third Parties Benito Arruñada’s book offers an innovative and intriguing analysis of the crucial role that institutions such as land registries play for securing property rights. A key observation that Benito makes deals with the different focus that economists have vis-à-vis lawyers in their view of property. [...]

Arrunada Seminar: John Nye

Updated: 2013-01-03 16:33:35

| John Nye | Formalization and “Optimal” Regulation Benito’s work on titling and formalization seems to serve as an excellent illustration of the problem of “optimal” regulation. Much of the debate about state vs. market presupposes a clear-cut distinction between private and public spheres. But as Benito’s complex discussion of the evolution of formalization and [...]

Arrunada Seminar: P.J. Hill

Updated: 2013-01-03 16:22:49

| P. J. Hill | The Importance of Sequential Exchange Arruñada’s important contribution to the vast literature on institutions and exchange comes from a concept that has been largely ignored by previous contributors (including me), namely the sequential nature of exchange. Most of us have treated the definition and enforcement of property rights as important [...]

Arrunada Seminar: Grand Opening

Updated: 2013-01-03 00:57:05

| Lasse Lien | Today we are proud to launch a virtual seminar over Benito Arruñada’s important new book: Institutional Foundations of Impersonal Exchange: Theory and Policy of Contractual Registries (U. of Chicago Press). First, what on earth is a virtual seminar? In this case a virtual seminar means that we over the next two [...]

The “Market Power” of Top Journals

Updated: 2013-01-02 15:37:22

| Peter Klein | When elite academic journals impose stricter submission requirements, authors comply. When lower-ranked journals impose these restrictions, authors submit elsewhere. Key insight for editors: know your place. Revealed Preferences for Journals: Evidence from Page Limits David Card, Stefano DellaVigna NBER Working Paper No. 18663, December 2012 Academic journals set a variety of policies [...]

Quickmemes for Academics

Updated: 2012-12-23 05:31:42

| Peter Klein | True confession: I love quickmemes. Yes, I know, they’re juvenile, most are silly, and more than a few are vulgar. But they make me laugh, sometimes uncontrollably. What about versions for academics? We could have Success Prof, Overly Attached Coauthor, Successful Grad Student, Sheltering Suburban Department Head, and so on. I’ve [...]