Michael C. Munger

With the growing popularity of apps such as Uber and Airbnb, there has been a keen interest in the rise of the sharing economy. Michael C. Munger brings these new trends in the economy down to earth by focusing on their relation to the fundamental economic concept of transaction costs. In doing so Munger brings a fresh perspective on the 'sharing economy' in clear and engaging writing that is accessible to both general and specialist readers. He shows how, for the first time, entrepreneurs can sell reductions in transaction costs, rather than reductions in the costs of the products themselves. He predicts that smartphones will be used to commodify excess capacity, and reaches the controversial conclusion that a basic income will be required as a consequence of this new 'transaction costs revolution'.

Transaction Costs and the Sharing Economy

Tomorrow 3.0

This book is an introduction to the logic and analytics of group choice. To understand how political institutions work, it is important to isolate what citizens - as individuals and as members of society - actually want. This book develops a means of 'representing' the preferences of citizens so that institutions can be studied more carefully. This is the first book to integrate the classical problem of constitutions with modern spatial theory, connecting Aristotle and Montesquieu with Arrow and Buchanan.

Analytical Politics Revisited

Choosing in Groups

Kevin M. Munger

This book is an introduction to the logic and analytics of group choice. To understand how political institutions work, it is important to isolate what citizens - as individuals and as members of society - actually want. This book develops a means of "representing" the preferences of citizens so that institutions can be studied more carefully. This is the first book to integrate the classical problem of constitutions with modern spatial theory, connecting Aristotle and Montesquieu with Arrow and Buchanan.

Melvin J. Hinich

Empirical Studies in Comparative Politics presents a collection of papers analyzing the political systems of ten nations. It intends to provoke a conscious effort to compare, and investigate, the public choice of comparative politics. There have been many publications by public choice scholars, and many more by researchers who are at least sympathetic to the public choice perspective, yet little of this work has been integrated into the main stream of comparative political science literature. This work, however, presents an empirically oriented study of the politics, bureaucratic organization, and regulated economies of particular nations in the canon of the comparativist. It therefore provides a public choice view at the level of nations, not of systems. This compendium of work on comparative politics meets two criteria: In every case, a model of human behavior or institutional impact is specified; Also in every case, this model is confronted with data appropriate for evaluating whether this model is useful for understanding politics in one or more nations.

Empirical Studies in Comparative Politics

Jonathan Anomaly

Geoffrey Brennan

Geoffrey Sayre-McCord

The only book on the market to include classical and contemporary readings from key authors in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE), this unique anthology provides a comprehensive overview of the central topics in this rapidly expanding field. Each chapter opens with an introduction that helps students understand the central arguments and key concepts in the readings. The selections encourage students to think about the extent to which the three disciplines offer complementary or contradictory ways of approaching the relevant issues. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics: An Anthology is ideal for undergraduate PPE programs and courses in political philosophy and political economy.

An Anthology

Philosophy, Politics, and Economics

Transactions have always taken place. For hundreds of years that ‘place’ was a market or, more recently, a shopping mall. But in the past two decades these physical locations have increasingly been replaced by their virtual counterparts – online platforms. Here, author Michael C. Munger demonstrates how these platforms act as matchmakers or middlemen, a role traders have adopted since the very first exchanges thousands of years ago. The difference today is that the matchmakers often play no direct part in buying or selling anything – they just help buyers and sellers find each other. Their major contribution has been to reduce the costs of organising and completing purchases, rentals or exchanges. The Sharing Economy: Its Pitfalls and Promises contends that the key role of online platforms is to create reductions in transaction costs and it highlights the importance of three ‘Ts’ - triangulation, transfer and trust – in bringing down those costs.

The Sharing Economy: Its Pitfalls and Promises

Introduction to the conceptual foundations of policy analysis including the basics of the welfare-economics paradigm and cost-benefit analysis.

Michael C. Munger

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