Pacifying monogamy

This paper proposes a theory of institutionally imposed monogamy. In a society where many women are allocated to the elite, there are high returns for the non-elite men to rebel. Monogamy, or “constrained” polygyny, can pacify non-elite men, and thus serve the elite’s reproductive interests. The more unequal is the society, the stricter constraints the elite want to impose on themselves. This suggests how monogamy might have arisen in response to rising class cleavages, e.g., in the wake of the introduction of agriculture. Another result is that, if the elite can write a law that commits not only themselves but also any group that would come to replace them in a rebellion, then polygyny will be more constrained than if they cannot. We speculate that the Church in Europe may have facilitated the imposition of such binding constraints.     

Does European development have Roman roots? Evidence from the German Limes

This paper contributes to the understanding of the long-run consequences of Roman rule on economic development. In ancient times, the area of contemporary Germany was divided into a Roman and a non-Roman part. The study uses this division to test whether the formerly Roman part of Germany are more developed than the non-Roman part. This is done using the Limes Germanicus wall as geographical discontinuity in a regression discontinuity design framework. The results indicate that economic development—as measured by luminosity—is indeed significantly and robustly larger in the formerly Roman part of Germany. The study identifies the persistence of the Roman road network until the present as an important factor causing this developmental advantage of the formerly Roman part of Germany both by fostering city growth and by allowing for a denser road network.     

Searching for the sunk cost fallacy

We seek to isolate in the laboratory factors that encourage and discourage the sunk cost fallacy. Subjects play a computer game in which they decide whether to keep digging for treasure on an island or to sink a cost (which will turn out to be either high or low) to move to another island. The research hypothesis is that subjects will stay longer on islands that were more costly to find. Eleven treatment variables are considered, e.g. alternative visual displays, whether the treasure value of an island is shown on arrival or discovered by trial and error, and alternative parameters for sunk costs. The data reveal a surprisingly small sunk cost effect that is generally insensitive to the proposed psychological drivers. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at . Jel Classification C91, D11     

State prices,liquidity, and default

We show, in a monetary exchange economy, that asset prices in a complete markets general equilibrium are a function of the supply of liquidity by the Central Bank, through its effect on default and interest rates. Two agents trade goods and nominal assets to smooth consumption across periods and future states, in the presence of cash-in-advance financing costs that have effects on real allocations. We show that higher spot interest rates reduce trade and as a result increase state prices. Hence, states of nature with higher interest rates are also states of nature with higher risk-neutral probabilities. This result, which cannot be found in a Lucas-type representative agent model, implies that the yield curve is upward sloping in equilibrium, even when short-term interest rates are fairly stable and the variance of the (macroeconomic) stochastic discount factor is 0. The risk-premium in the term structure is, therefore, a monetary-cost risk premium.     

“Remembrance of things past”: Gordon Tullock,the man and the bioeconomist

My tribute paper on Gordon Tullock (1922–2014) provides some memorable stories of Tullock as a person and as a founder of bioeconomics. I include my speech, “Toast and roast: Gordon Tullock,” delivered on the occasion of Tullock’s 80th birthday; also the same “Toast and roast....,” written in the form of a poem, “Ode to Gordon Tullock.” I also discuss Tullock’s contributions to bioeconomics. In a concluding section, I recall a couple of my poignant memories of Gordon Tullock.     

Towards a New Austrian Macroeconomics

Austrian macroeconomists of the interwar period saw the economy as a complex adaptive system, in which macroeconomic variables emerge from the interaction between millions of purposefully acting agents. Recent advances in computation technology allow us to build empirically salient synthetic economies in silico, and thereby formalize many Austrian insights. We present a workhorse model with firms on an input-output network. Macroeconomic variables evolve through the interaction between micro-economic decisions. We use the model to explain an effect of monetary shocks on the price distribution and provide a sketch of other potential applications.     

Enlarging the EMU to the east: what effects on trade?

The purpose of this article is to assess the implications of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) accession of eight Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) on their share of EMU-12 imports. Overcoming biases related to endogeneity, omitted variables and sample selection, our results indicate that the common currency has boosted intra-EMU imports by 7%. Under the assumption that the same relationship between the explanatory variables and imports will hold for EMU-CEEC trade, we intend to predict the future impact of the Euro. Our findings suggest that except for the least integrated countries, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, all CEECs can expect increases in the EMU-12 import share.

Entry of painters in the Amsterdam market of the Golden Age

We analyze the evolution of the entry of painters and price of paintings in the XVII century Amsterdam art market. In line with evolutionary theory, demand-driven entry in the market was first associated with product innovations and a rapid increase in the number of painters. After reaching a peak, the number of painters started to decrease in parallel with a price decline and the introduction of process innovations. To test for the role of profitability in the art market as a determinant of endogenous entry of painters, we build a price index for the representative painting inventoried in Dutch houses. This is based on hedonic regressions controlling for characteristics of the paintings (size, genre, placement in the house), the owners (job, religion, value of the collection, size of the house) and the painters. After a peak at the beginning of the century, the real price of paintings decreased until the end of the century. We provide anecdotal evidence for which high initial prices attracted entry of innovators, and econometric evidence on the causal relation between price movements and entry.     

Keynes and Wagner on government expenditures and economic development: the case of a developing economy

This paper investigates the Keynesian view and the Wagner’s Law on the role of public expenditure on economic growth for Malaysia (1970–2004). The empirical results using the Auto-Regression Distributed Lag (ARDL) model and the ‘bounds test’ (Pesaran et al. in J Appl Econ 16:289–326, 2001) showed evidence of a long run relationship between total expenditures (including expenditures on defense, education, development and agriculture) and Gross National Product. The results also show that with the structural break in 1998, the long run causality is bi-directional for GNP and expenditures on administration and health, supporting both Keynes view and Wagner’s Law. For all other expenditure categories the long run causality runs from GNP to the expenditures, which supports Wagner’s Law. An erratum to this article can be found at