George Stigler (1982) on why the working class did not vote for the Green Party in the 2014 NZ election–part 4
04 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
The Economics of Europe’s Insane History of Putting Animals on Trial and Executing Them
02 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of religion, law and economics, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking, taxation Tags: economics of religion, follow the money, Peter Leeson, rent seeking
The fantastically creative and insightful Peter Leeson published an article in the Journal of Law and Economics in 2013 on the practice of putting animals on trial in the Medieval ages.
Abstract
For 250 years insects and rodents accused of committing property crimes were tried as legal persons in French, Italian, and Swiss ecclesiastic courts under the same laws and according to the same procedures used to try actual persons.I argue that the Catholic Church used vermin trials to increase tithe revenues where tithe evasion threatened to erode them.
Vermin trials achieved this by bolstering citizens’ belief in the validity of Church punishments for tithe evasion: estrangement from God through sin, excommunication, and anathema.
Vermin trials permitted ecclesiastics to evidence their supernatural sanctions’ legitimacy by producing outcomes that supported those sanctions’ validity. These outcomes strengthened citizens’ belief that the Church’s imprecations were real, which allowed ecclesiastics to reclaim jeopardized tithe revenue
Leeson’s paper is also closely connected to Ekelund, Herbert, and Tollison’s (1989, 2002, 2006) and Ekelund et al.’s (1996) work. They study the medieval Catholic Church as a firm. They discuss how ecclesiastics used supernatural sanctions to protect the Church’s monopoly on spiritual services against heretical competition.
HT: Wired – fantastically-wrong-europes-insane-history-putting-animals-trial-executing/
The Tyranny of the Taxi Medallions
01 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of religion, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking Tags: taxi regulation
Pro-free enterprise does not mean pro-business
28 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economics of religion, liberalism, Milton Friedman, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: Milton Friedman
The economics of Christianity
23 Jul 2014 2 Comments
in applied price theory, economics of religion Tags: economics of religion, Robert Tollison
These are all worth reading:
- Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm by Robert D. Tollison, R. Ekelund, R. Hebert, G. Anderson, and A. Davis 1996.
- The Marketplace of Christianity by Robert B. Ekelund Jr. & Robert F. Hebert & Robert D. Tollison, 2008 -discusses the reformation, counter-reformation and thereafter.
- Economic Origins of Roman Christianity by Robert B. Ekelund Jr. and Robert D. Tollison 2011 (the 1st 1000 years).
See as well The Pope and the Price of Meat: A Public Choice Perspective by Richard Ault, Robert Ekelund and Robert D. Tollison in Kyklos which shows how self-interest, economic geography, and an expanded number of third-world voters in the College of Cardinals explain why Pope Paul IV changed the relative price of meat and altered penance rules in 1966.
This paper applies public choice and modern regulatory theory to the twentieth century Roman Catholic Church and attempts to discover why the decision was made in 1966 to absolve Catholics from the requirement that meat not be eaten on most Fridays of the year.
We provide a cartel analysis of the institutional backdrop and power structure of the College of Cardinals within the Church. In this framework, self-interest, the geographic production of beef and fish, and the expanded number of voters in the College of Cardinals are the keys to understanding why Pope PAUL VI decided to change the relative price of meat and to alter penance rules in 1966.
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