Preface and Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Prologue: The Bus 1. Introduction 2. The California Political Economy 3. The Prison Fix 4. Crime, Croplands, and Capitalism 5. Mothers Reclaiming Our Children 6. What Is to Be Done? Epilogue: Another Bus Notes

Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California

We consider an economy where contracts are necessary to encourage investments. Contract enforcement requires that a fraction of the agents work in the public sector and do not accept bribes. We find that: (1) It may be optimal to allow some corruption and not enforce property rights fully. (2) Less developed economies may choose lower levels of property right enforcement and more corruption. (3) There may exist a 'free-lunch' such that over a certain range it is possible simultaneously to reduce corruption, increase investment, and achieve a better allocation of talent. Bureaucratic corruption is widespread in many societies. Casual empiricism and case studies suggest that corruption distorts the allocation of resources, and discourages investment and the creation of new firms (e.g. Mydral, 1968, DeSoto, 1989). Cross-country studies also find that countries with high corruption or long bureaucratic delays suffer lower growth (e.g. Mauro, 1996; Sartre, 1997). It is therefore tempting to conclude that government policies and bureaucratic corruption are at least partly responsible for the lack of development or slow growth of many economies (e.g. Shleifer and Vishny, 1993). Nevertheless, governments and bureaucracies do not exist only to seek rents. They perform a number of useful functions, including provision of public goods, correction of market failures, and redistribution. Without understanding why the state exists, it is difficult to assess why corruption arises, what its consequences are, and whether and how it should be prevented. In this paper, we analyse how the employees of the state (bureaucrats) can misuse their power to enforce property rights. The protection of property rights is commonly viewed as one of the most important roles of the state by political philosophers as diverse as David Hume, Karl Marx and Robert Nozick, while a number of social scientists including North and Thomas (1973) and Rosenberg and Bridzell (1989) emphasise the importance of secure property rights in the development of western societies. For the state to have a role in enforcing property rights, some contractual problems must exist between private parties. In our economy, these contractual problems are between entrepreneurs. In particular, production requires two agents, and one of the entrepreneurs needs to undertake an investment, but the returns accrue to the other one. This can be thought as a partnership with the first agent as an upstream supplier providing an input of variable

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Property Rights, Corruption and the Allocation of Talent: a General Equilibrium Approach

Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital presents a novel interpretation of the good and bad times in the economy, taking a long-term perspective and linking technology and finance in an original and convincing way.

Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital

A blind spot? the birth of an ideology clearing away the rubbish print culture nationalising religion the culture of science anatomising human nature the science of politics secularising modernising happiness from good sense to sensibility nature did the mind have a sex? education - a panacea the vulgar the pursuit of wealth reform progress the revolutionary era - "modern philosophy" lasting light?

Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World

The British Industrial Revolution triggered a socioeconomic transformation whereby the landowning aristocracy was replaced by industrial capitalists rising from the middle classes as the economically dominant group. We propose a theory of preference formation under financial market imperfections that can account for this pattern. Parents shape their children’s preferences in response to economic incentives. Middle-class families in occupations requiring effort, skill, and experience develop patience and a work ethic, whereas upper-class families relying on rental income cultivate a refined taste for leisure. These class-specific attitudes, which are rooted in the nature of preindustrial professions, become key determinants of success once industrialization transforms the economic landscape. I. INTRODUCTION The Industrial Revolution was more than capital accumulation and growth. It also set off a social and political transformation that redefined hierarchies in society and reshaped the distribution of income and wealth. Before the onset of industrialization in eighteenth-century Britain, wealth and political power were associated with the possession of land. Over the course of the nineteenth century, a new class of entrepreneurs and businessmen emerged as the economic elite. For the most part, the members of this class rose from humble beginnings and had their social origins in the urban middle classes. The landed elite was left behind and eventually lost its political and economic predominance. Many observers of the time linked this reversal in economic fortunes to differences in values, attitudes, and ultimately preferences across social classes. There are countless examples, both in scholarly and in fictional writing, of portrayals of members of the landowning class as averse to work, unwilling to save, ill-disposed tocommercialactivity,andunabletoconsidermoneyassomething

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Occupational Choice and the Spirit of Capitalism

The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century

(1994). British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion, 1688–1914. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 162-163.

Philip Lawson

Papers

The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century

British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion, 1688–1914

The Making of a Great Power: Late Stuart and early Georgian Britain, 1660–1722