With the growing popularity of apps such as Uber and Airbnb, there has been a keen interest in the rise of the sharing economy. Michael C. Munger brings these new trends in the economy down to earth by focusing on their relation to the fundamental economic concept of transaction costs. In doing so Munger brings a fresh perspective on the 'sharing economy' in clear and engaging writing that is accessible to both general and specialist readers. He shows how, for the first time, entrepreneurs...

Transactions have always taken place. For hundreds of years that ‘place’ was a market or, more recently, a shopping mall. But in the past two decades these physical locations have increasingly been replaced by their virtual counterparts – online platforms. Here, author Michael C. Munger demonstrates how these platforms act as matchmakers or middlemen, a role traders have adopted since the very first exchanges thousands of years ago. The difference today is that the matchmakers often play n...

“Anyone concerned with social justice will find this book makes him question his assumptions, rethink his premises, and think!”—Andrew P. Morriss, professor, Bush School of Government and Public Service, School of Law, Texas A&M UniversityWhat is social justice?In these pages, twenty-one accomplished academics seek to do justice to “social justice.” Inequality exists and obviously causes rifts in societies. But it’s not obvious how the gover...

This book is an introduction to the logic and analytics of group choice. To understand how political institutions work, it is important to isolate what citizens - as individuals and as members of society - actually want. This book develops a means of 'representing' the preferences of citizens so that institutions can be studied more carefully. This is the first book to integrate the classical problem of constitutions with modern spatial theory, connecting Aristotle and Montesquieu with Arr...

There is no unified theory that can explain both voter choice and where choices come from. Hinich and Munger fill that gap with their model of political communication based on ideology.Rather than beginning with voters and diffuse, atomistic preferences, Hinich and Munger explore why large groups of voters share preference profiles, why they consider themselves "liberals" or "conservatives." The reasons, they argue, lie in the twin problems of communication and commitment that poli...

Has growing concern about inequality led to proposals to remake American society according to ill-conceived and coercive "egalitarian" measures that are fundamentally unjust and harmful?This unique book reveals the modern romance with equality of outcomes as destructive folly. Those elites and bureaucrats who advocate such notions claim that they champion the poor—but more often than not the nostrums of this managerial class undermine, rather than advance, economic...

What will the economy look like in fifty years? How will our lives as consumers and workers be transformed by the coming innovations in technology, the marketplace, and the workplace? How will changes in demographics and dependency affect our political system? Will economic freedom rise or fall? What, if anything, would greater prosperity do for one’s total well-being?Future: Economic Peril or Prosperity? poses these and related questions to a diverse grou...

Empirical Studies in Comparative Politics presents a collection of papers analyzing the political systems of ten nations. It intends to provoke a conscious effort to compare, and investigate, the public choice of comparative politics.There have been many publications by public choice scholars, and many more by researchers who are at least sympathetic to the public choice perspective, yet little of this work has been integrated into the main stream of comparative political s...

Adam Smith turned economic theory on its head in 1776 when he declared that the pursuit of self-interest mediated by the market itself--not by government--led, via an invisible hand, to the greatest possible welfare for society as a whole. The Hesitant Hand examines how subsequent economic thinkers have challenged or reaffirmed Smith's doctrine, some contending that society needs government to intervene on its behalf when the marketplace falters, others arguing that government int...

What is freedom? How is freedom related to justice, law, property, peace, and prosperity? Tom Palmer has spent a lifetime-as a scholar, teacher, journalist, and activist-asking and answering these questions. Since its publication in 2009, Realizing Freedom has been the recipient of wide acclaim, both in the United States and around the world. Now, this expanded edition adds even greater depth and dimension to the book, with newly added essays that confirm Palmer's role as one of l...

This book surveys the leading modern theories of property - Lockean, libertarian, utilitarian/law-and-economics, personhood, Kantian and human flourishing - and then applies those theories to concrete contexts in which property issues have been especially controversial. These include redistribution, the right to exclude, regulatory takings, eminent domain and intellectual property. The book highlights the Aristotelian human flourishing theory of property, providing the most comprehensive a...

Aaron Wildavsky, along with Mary Douglas, identified what they called grid-group theory. Wildavsky began calling this "cultural theory," and applied it to an astounding array of subjects. The essays in this volume exemplify the theory's potential contributions to three seemingly disparate, but related, areas: the social construction of meaning, normative/analytic political philosophy, and a theory of rational choices. This book is the first in a series of Aaron Wildavsky's collected writin...