Research

Research Interests

• The New Deal
• The Early 19th Century United States
• Government Finance in the United States
• Transaction Costs
• Institutional Change
• Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History with Douglass North and Barry Weingast
• Organizations and institutions

The NBER/Maryland State Constitutions Project

Selected Article and Working Papers

Recent Working Papers

• "Founding Errors: Making Democracy Safe for America" [pdf file], December 2008.

• "The Other Foundings: Federalism and the Constitutional Structure of American Government." [pdf file] Founding Choices Conference, Dartmouth, page proofs, June 2010.

• "Institutions, Organizations, Interests, and Impersonality" [pdf file] Institutional Dynamics Conference, Paris, Oct. 2008. February 2010 version, forthcoming in JEBO.

• "Why Competitive Markets Aren't Self-Actuating: The Political Economy of Open Access." [pdf file] Manufacturing Markets Conference, Florence, May 2009.

• "Stones, Bones, and States" with Richard Steckel, working paper, April 2007, [pdf file].

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The following provides links to pdf files of some selected working papers, page proofs, or final copies:

• "A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History", April 2005 [pdf file], with Douglass North and Barry Weingast, NBER Working Paper, w12785, December 2006.

• "Stones, Bones, and States" with Richard Steckel, working paper, April 2007, [pdf file].

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• "The Concept of Systematic Corruption in American Political and Economic History", April 2005 [pdf file]

• "Equilibrium Impotence:  Why the States and Not the American National Government Financed Infrastructure Investment in the Antebellum Era", (with B. R. Weingast), May 2005 [PDF file]

• "American Government and the Promotion of Economic Development In the National Era, 1790 to 1860", January 2004 [pdf file]

• "Constitutions, Corporations, and Corruption:  American States and Constitutional Change, 1842 to 1852", Journal of Economic History, January 2005 [pdf file]

• "The Property Tax as a Coordinating Device:  Financing Indiana’s Mammoth Internal Improvement System, 1835 to 1842", Explorations in Economic History, July, 2003 [PDF file]

• "Politics, Relief, and Reform:  The Transformation of America’s Social Welfare System during the New Deal" (with P. Fishback and S. Kantor), Explorations in Economic History, July, 2003 [pdf file]

• "Sovereign Default and Repudiation: The Emerging-Market Debt Crisis in U.S. States, 1839-1843", 2004 [pdf file]

• "The Market for American State Government Bonds in Britain and the United States, 1830 to 1843"  [PDF file]  EHR, November 2005.   The following notice must accompany the PDF on the Contributing Author’s website: ‘This is an electronic version of an article published in The Economic History Review: complete citation information for the final version of the paper, as published in the print edition of The Economic History Review, is available on the Blackwell Synergy online delivery service, accessible via the journal’s website at http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ehr or http://www.blackwell-synergy.com.

• "The Political Economy of New Deal Spending Revisited, Again: With and Without Nevada." Explorations in Economic History, 35 (2) April 1998.[pdf file]