Working Papers
Tariff Choice with Experience Goods: Sorting-Induced Biases and Illusive Surplus (with Ron Goettler), Revise and Resubmit, Rand Journal of Economics
Insurance without Kin? Private-Order Institutions in Gold Rush California (with Mercy Chang)
Property Rights and Agricultural Production
Lead, Mortality, and Productivity. (with Werner Troesken and Michael Haines). A much earlier version is Lead Pipes and Child Mortality (with Werner Troesken and Michael Haines), NBER Working Paper #12603.
Natural Resources and Economic Outcomes
Publications
"Migrating to Riches? Evidence from the California Gold Rush" (with Randy Jones). Forthcoming, December 2008 in Journal of Economic History.
"The Effect of Judicial Independence on Courts: Evidence from the American States" (with Dan Berkowitz), Journal of Legal Studies, v35, n2 (June 2006): 399-440.
"American Civil Law Origins: Implications for State Constitutions "(with Dan Berkowitz), American Law and Economics Review, v7, n1 (Spring 2005): 62-84.
"Order Without Law? Property Rights During the California Gold Rush" (with Gavin Wright) Explorations in Economic History, v42, n2 (April 2005): 155-183.
"Bigger may not be Better: An Empirical Analysis of Optimal Membership Rules in Peer to Peer Networks" (with Atip Asvunund, Ramayya Krishnan, and Michael Smith) Information Systems Research, v.15, n2 (2004): 155-174.
"Designing a Better Shopbot" (with Alan Montgomery, Kartik Hosanager, and Ramayya Krishnan), Management Science, v50, n2 (February 2004): 189-206.
"Further Tests of Static Oligopoly Models: Whiskey, 1882-1898" with Werner Troesken, Journal of Industrial Economics, v51, n2 (June 2003): 151-166.
"Strategic Behavior in Whiskey Distilling, 1887-1895" with Werner Troesken, Journal of Economic History, v62, n4 (December 2002): 999-1023.
"Institutional Barriers to Electronic Commerce: An Historical Perspective" with Robert Strauss, Advances in Strategic Management, v19 (2002):247-273.
"Retail Strategies on the Web: Price and Non-Price Competition in the Online Book Industry" with Ramayya Krishnan, Eric Wolff, and Danny Fernnades, Journal of Industrial Economics, v50, n3 (September 2002): 351-67.
"Prices and Price Dispersion on the Web: Evidence from the Online Book Industry" with Ramayya Krishnan and Eric Wolff, Journal of Industrial Economics, v49, n4 (December 2001): 521-39.
"Trust, Risk and Electronic Commerce: Nineteenth Century Lessons for the Twenty-First Century " with Robert Strauss, State Tax Notes (Reprinted from the Proceedings of the National Tax Association), December 25, 2000.
"The Choice-Within-Constraints New Institutionalism and Implications for Sociology", with Paul Ingram, Annual Review of Sociology, v 26 (2000): 525-546.
"Squatting and the Settlement of the United States: New Evidence from Post-Gold Rush California", with Werner Troesken, Advances in Agricultural Economic History, v1 (2000): 207-33.
"Property Rights and Institutions: Congress and the California Land Act of 1851". Journal of Economic History, v59, n1 (March 1999): 122-42.
"Trade, Institutions, and Credit: Contract Enforcement on the California Coast, 1830-1846". Explorations in Economic History, v34, n4 (October 1997): 495-521.
"Trade Without Law: Private-Order Institutions in Mexican California". Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, v13, n1 (April 1997): 202-31.
"A Coasean General Equilibrium Model of Regulation". Journal of Public Economics, v53, n3 (March 1994): 459-75.
"Ex Post vs. Ex Ante Pricing: Optional Calling Plans and Tapered Tariffs", with David Sibley and Padmanabhan Srinagesh, Journal of Regulatory Economics, v4, n2 (June 1992): 115-38. To be reprinted in The Economics of Public Utilities, edited by Ray Rees, Edward Elgar.