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For decades, behavioural economics has transformed how we think about human decision-making. It showed that people are not the cold, hyper-rational optimisers imagined by classical economics. We rely on heuristics. We fear losses more than we value equivalent gains, we overvalue our own properties, we discount future rewards more than we should. And we have […]
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What can we learn about broad institutional formation from the experience of US environmental legislation? Despite providing public goods, environmental regulation is too costly, inequitable, and controversial. Why that is the case and what it suggests for general institutional change are cautionary lessons from the adoption of centralized prescriptive policies rather than decentralized markets to […]
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In 2012, Zambian President Michael Sata launched “Link Zambia 8000,” pledging 8,000 kilometers of new roads. Billions flowed from China, the World Bank, and OECD financiers. A decade later, less than 10% was completed. The new tarmac clustered in the Northern Province—a ruling-party stronghold—while the opposition’s Southern Province remained a patchwork of dusty tracks. As […]
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For much of the past decade, corporations occupied a very visible place in public life. They spoke after Charlottesville and January 6, opposed the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, intervened in immigration and voting debates, and redesigned internal policies—from reproductive healthcare to gun sales—in response to political change. In the process, the boundary between economic […]
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When financial crises strike, rescues and bailouts of distressed firms spark a familiar question: who really benefits? That same reservation arose long before the Federal Reserve, our lender of last resort, was founded. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the United States had no central bank, J. P. Morgan—not a public institution—was […]
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In the 1990s I had a “driveway moment.” Public radio had a story about conflict within the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) over the geographic allocation of livers for transplantation. Congress has delegated responsibility for organ allocation rules to the OPTN, an organization of transplant centers, organ procurement organizations, and histocompatibility laboratories, rather than […]
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Animals are all around us. They give us food, clothing, and companionship. We use them for entertainment and research. And they are countless in the wild. Human activities affect them, often without us realizing it. Most importantly, many animals are sentient: they can feel pain and emotions. In other words, they can experience welfare. Economics […]
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Making housing affordable is now a top priority for countries and subnational governments around the world. While much of the debate appears to be happening in countries like the United States and United Kingdom, low- and middle-income countries have been pursuing policies to make housing accessible for decades. What do these policies look like, what […]
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