Bücher der Reihe Cambridge Studies in Economics, Choice, and Society

This survey of the fiscal history of China's last imperial dynasty explains why its ability to tax was unusually weak. It argues that the answer lies in the internal ideological worldviews of the political elite, rather than in external political or economic constraints.

This book explains how people define and enforce property rights when they cannot rely on the government to do so, why governments are unable or unwilling to recognize property rights, and why legal titling is unable to improve economic livelihoods in fragile states.

This is a book for political scientists and economists interested in the political economy of development and private governance, along with anyone interested in the micro-dynamics of informal markets. The book introduces a theory for how the state shapes private governance, using data from traders and market associations in Nigeria.

The emergence of religious liberty in the West is one of the most important developments in modern history. This book treats the subject in an integrative way, borrowing tools from economics, history, and political science. Researchers in fields across the humanities and social sciences will find it a valuable resource.

This book carefully dissects the claims of nudge theory and other forms of paternalism based on behavioral economics. The authors reveal how paternalist normative standards are unjustified and why paternalist policymaking is unlikely to produce desirable results, arguing instead for a more inclusive theory of rationality in economic policymaking.

Building on the work of Nobel Prize in Economics winner Elinor Ostrom, the book revisits the theory of political self-governance in the context of recent developments in social sciences and political philosophy. Aligica presents a fresh conceptualization of self-governance as a response to cutting-edge challenges of populism, paternalism and authoritarianism.

Articulates Adam Smith's model of human sociality, illustrated in experimental economic games that relate easily to business and everyday life. Shows how to re-humanize the study of economics in the twenty-first century by integrating Adam Smith's two great books into contemporary empirical analysis.

Using multiple innovative research methods, this book explores the beliefs and institutions of Catholicism and Islam that prompt generosity from their members. It will appeal to those interested in how religion affects behavior, and to those interested in advances in field experiments and case studies in Western Europe and Turkey.

Roger Koppl develops a theory of experts and expert failure, and uses a wide range of examples - from forensic science to fashion - to explain the applications of his theory, including state regulation of economic activity. This book will appeal to researchers in economics, philosophy, law, science and technology studies and criminal justice.

Munger brings a fresh perspective on the 'sharing economy' in clear and engaging writing that is accessible to both general and specialist readers. He predicts that smartphones will be used to commodify excess capacity, and reaches the controversial conclusion that a basic income will be required as a consequence of this new 'transaction costs revolution'.

This book challenges the widespread view that Islam is a reactionary religion that defends tradition against modernity and individual freedom. Jean-Philippe Platteau shows how Islam is vulnerable to political manipulation and how the threat of religious extremism is especially high because Islam is not organized as a centralized church.

This book discusses the role that Islam and Christianity played in the long-run economic reversal of fortunes between Western Europe and the Middle East. Instead of focusing on the content of the religions, it documents the importance of religious legitimacy in politics as a driving force in the economic divergence.

Environmental Markets explains the prospects of using markets to improve environmental quality and resource conservation. No other book focuses on a property rights approach using environmental markets to solve environmental problems. This book compares standard approaches to these problems using governmental management, regulation, taxation, and subsidization with a market-based property rights approach. This approach is applied to land, water, wildlife, fisheries, and air and is compared to governmental solutions. The book concludes by discussing tougher environmental problems such as ocean fisheries and the global atmosphere, emphasizing that neither governmental nor market solutions are a panacea.

This book provides a comprehensive defense of third-world sweatshops. It explains how these sweatshops provide the best available opportunity to workers and how they play an important role in the process of development that eventually leads to better wages and working conditions. Using economic theory, the author argues that much of what the anti-sweatshop movement has agitated for would actually harm the very workers they intend to help by creating less desirable alternatives and undermining the process of development. Nowhere does this book put 'profits' or 'economic efficiency' above people. Improving the welfare of poorer citizens of third world countries is the goal, and the book explores which methods best achieve that goal. Out of Poverty will help readers understand how activists and policy makers can help third world workers.

In Anarchy Unbound, Peter T. Leeson uses rational choice theory to explore the benefits of self-governance. Relying on experience from the past and present, Professor Leeson provides evidence of anarchy 'working' where it is least expected to do so and explains how this is possible. Provocatively, Leeson argues that in some cases anarchy may even outperform government as a system of social organization, and demonstrates where this may occur. Anarchy Unbound challenges the conventional self-governance wisdom. It showcases the incredible ingenuity of private individuals to secure social cooperation without government and how their surprising means of doing so can be superior to reliance on the state.

Building on the work of Elinor and Vincent Ostrom and the 'Bloomington School', Governing Complexity provides an updated explanation of polycentric governance, and critically evaluates its usefulness through examples in contemporary settings involving complex natural resource systems.

Explains why unequal political and economic power is perpetuated through the self-interested behavior of well-connected politicians and economic elites. Describes developments in political and economic policy that maintain these advantages and discusses ways in which public policy could be redirected back toward the public interest.

Explains why unequal political and economic power is perpetuated through the self-interested behavior of well-connected politicians and economic elites. Describes developments in political and economic policy that maintain these advantages and discusses ways in which public policy could be redirected back toward the public interest.

Cass R. Sunstein, the eminent legal scholar and best-selling co-author of Nudge (2008), breaks new ground with The Ethics of Influence: Government in the Age of Behavioral Science, an investigation of ethical issues surrounding government nudges, choice architecture, and the constraints and responsibilities of an ethical state.

Using evidence and arguments from neuroscience and evolutionary psychology, Morris B. Hoffman traces the development of deeply held legal principles throughout human evolution, describing how the drives to punish and forgive became codified into our legal system, and the responsibility for punishing and forgiving assigned to a judge and jury.