Robert B. Ekelund Jr.

Sir Edwin Chadwick (1800 - 1890) is hardly a household name among economists, although he is a well-known hero to sanitation engineers and utilitarian social reformers. His brilliant and cunning ideas relating to contemporary economic policy are illuminated for the first time in this pioneering study. The authors detail Chadwick's sophisticated conceptions of moral hazard, common pool problems, asymmetric information, and theory of competition, all of which differ starkly from those promulgated by Adam Smith and other classical economists. Also examined are Chadwick's views on government versus market role in dealing with problems created by natural monopoly, and whether some or all market problems justify government regulation or alterations of property rights. The authors investigate Chadwick's utilitarian approach to labor, business cycles, and economic growth, contrasting his modern view with those of his classical economic contemporaries. Chadwick's enormous output and cutting-edge methods undoubtedly establish him as an original and trenchant thinker in economic matters as well as a prophetic voice on contemporary issues in economics. This unique look at his less familiar research will interest academic regulatory economists, sociologists, students and scholars of law and economics, and all those interested in the fundamentals of social reform.

Politicized Economies illuminates the high tide of mercantilism in England and the entrenchment of controls in the French and Spanish economies between 1540 and 1640. Ekelund and Tollison subject mercantilist foreign trade to neoclassical-neoinstitutional analysis, examining the general economic organization of the mercantile companies and focusing on the economic inner workings of the East India Company. The authors probe for the origins of the modern corporation in the early joint stock companies of England and analyze the effects of regulatory forms on the business organizations that emerged to engage in foreign trade.

Using basic concepts of economic theory, the authors explain the origin and subsequent spread of Roman Christianity, showing first how the standard concepts of risk, cost and benefit can account for the demand for religion.

xv, 468 p. : 24 cm