Sources on Reforming Social Institutions

Primary Texts

• Barry J. Nalebuff and Ian Ayres, Why Not?: How To Use Everyday Ingenuity To Solve Problems Big And Small, Harvard Business School Press, 2004, ISBN 1591396816.
• Alexander Tabarrok (Editor), Entrepreneurial Economics: Bright Ideas from the Dismal Science, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0195145038.

Pursuing Reform Ideas

• Guy Kawasaki, Ten Things to Learn This School Year, August 22, 2006, 1560 words.
• Bryan Caplan, Why Be Normal?, March 2, 2005, 470 words.
• Robin Hanson, The Myth of Creativity, Business Week Online, July 3, 2006, 700 words.

Institution Reform Idea Sources

• Why Not
• Global Idea Bank
• Alternative Institutions
• AltInst Mailing List Archives

Economics

• Wikipedia, Supply and Demand, 4930 words.
• David Friedman, Price Theory: An Intermediate Text, 1990, very long.

Garbage

• Lisa Skumatz, Incentives and Trash Collection, Mackinac Center for Public Policy, 2002, 1570 words.
• Don Fullerton and Thomas C. Kinnaman, Household Responses to Pricing Garbage by the Bag, American Economic Review 86(4):971-984, Sep. 1996, ?? words.

Organs

• William Barnett, Michael Saliba, and Deborah Walker, A Free Market in Kidneys: Efficient and Equitable, Independent Institute 5(3):373-385, Winter 2001, 13 pages.
• Stephanie Murphy, Eight Ethical Objections to an Organ Market ... And Why They're Wrong, January 2005, 2375 words.
• Edward Nelson et. al., Financial Incentives for Organ Donation, A Report of the Payment Subcommittee, United Network for Organ Sharing Ethics Committee, June 30, 1993, 2600 words.

Parking

• Donald C. Shoup, The High Cost of Free Parking, 900 words.
• 'Free Parking' Comes at a Price, Author Says, All Things Considered, April 30, 2005, 710 Words.
• Dan Klein, Free Parking versus Free Markets, The Independent Review, Fall 2006, 3760 words.
• Entrepreneurial Economics, Chapter 14, Curb Rights, Klein et al.

Housing

• Bryan Caplan, Let Them Get Roommates, March 25, 2005, 350 words.
• Wikipedia, Intentional Community, 350 words.
• Wikipedia, Kibbutz, 9675 words.

Large Scale Social Reform

• Hedrick Smith, The Russians, Introduction, Ballantine Books, 1976, 9825 words.
• Orville Schell, Great Disorder Under Heaven, Washington Post, Oct. 29, 2006, 1150 words.
• Youqin Wang, Chinese Cultural Revolution - Chronology of Events, 1040 Words.
• Wikipedia, Cultural Revolution, 7850 words.

Evolutionary Psychology

• H.B.E.S., Introductions to Evolutionary Psychology.
• Paul Kenyon, Evolutionary Psychology, April 2000, 7230 words.

Signaling

• Carl Bergstrom, Handicap Principle, September 4, 2002, 5230 words.
• Judith Donath, Signals, Truth & Design, MAS 961 course notes, MIT, Spring 2006, Long.
• Robin Hanson, Signaling Sources, July 2006.

Education

• Wikipedia, Education Reform, 4300 words.
• Jerome Karabel, Review of The Price of Admission, 500 words.
• Malcom Gladwell, Getting In - The social logic of Ivy League admissions, New Yorker October 10, 2005, 4900 words.
• Paul Graham, Why Nerds Are Unpopular, February 2003, 5670 words.
• Bryan Caplan, Mixed Signals: Why Becker, Cowen, and Kling Should Reconsider the Signaling Model of Education, February 5, 2006, 870 words.
• Robin Hanson, Regressions of Student Evaluations/Grades, May 2001, 170 words.

Insurance

• Stefano Athanasoulis, Robert Shiller, and Eric van Wincoop, Macro Markets and Financial Security, Economic Policy Review 5(1), April 1999, 19 pages.
• J. David Cummins, Richard D. Phillips, and Mary A. Weiss, The Incentive Effects of No-Fault Automobile Insurance, Journal of Law and Economics 44: 427-464, 2001, 37 pages.
• Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October, 1961, 2200 words.
• Robin Hanson, Is Fairness About Clear Fitness Signals?, 2840 words.

Charity

• NCCS, Quick Facts on Charity, 510 words.
• Robin Hanson, Charity Angels, 506 words.
• Jason Dana, Roberto Weber, Jason Xi Kuang, Exploiting moral wiggle room: Experiments demonstrating an illusory preference for fairness, Long.

Health

• John Cochrane, Time-Consistent Health Insurance Journal of Political Economy 103(3):445-473, June 1995.
• Marcia Angell, Statement introducing the U.S. National Health Insurance Act, February 4, 2004, 1600 words.
• Robin Hanson, Buy Health, Not Health Care. Cato Journal 14(1):135-141, Summer 1994, 2125 words.

• Robin Hanson, Fear of Death and Muddled Thinking – It Is So Much Worse Than You Think, 3280 words.

Parenting

• Judith Rich Harris, The idea of zero parental influence, 965 words.
• Judith Rich Harris and Jerome Kagan, The Nature of Nurture: Parents or Peers?, Slate, November 1998, 5400 words.

Romance

• Wikipedia, Speed Dating, 740 words.
• Bryan Caplan, Are You Big Enough to Tolerate Polygamy?, June 4, 2006, 200 words.
• Gary Becker, Is There a Case for Legalizing Polygamy?, Oct. 22, 2006, 1225 words.
• Love Unlimited, New Scientist, July 7, 2006, 2360 words.

Marriage

• Wikipedia, Arranged Marriage, 2670 words.
• Amen Jafri, In Praise of Arranged Marriages, 1015 words.
• Wikipedia, Covenant marriage, 310 words.
• Muslim Misyar and Mut‘ah Marriages, 4000 and 2000 words.

Work

• Wikipedia, Open Source, 2470 words.
• Paul Graham, Hiring is Obsolete, May 2005, 4650 words.
• Paul Graham, How to Make Wealth, May 2004, 8920 words.

Management

• Wikipedia, Worker Cooperative, 680 words.
• Lee Altenberg, Beyond Capitalism: Leland Stanford's Forgotten Vision, Sandstone and Tile 14(1):8-20, Winter 1990, 9340 words.
• Robin Hanson, Decision Markets. IEEE Intelligent Systems 14(3):16-19, May/June, 1999. Reprinted in Entrepreneurial Economics. 2820 words.
• David Ellerman, The Case for Workplace Democracy, 3560 words.
• Udo Staber, Worker cooperatives and the business cycle: are cooperatives the answer to unemployment?, first page, American Journal of Economics and Sociology April, 1993, 820 words.

Innovation

• Paul Graham, Are Software Patents Evil?, March 2006, 4610 words.
• Software patents - A clicking bomb, Economist, September 4, 2003, 640 words.
• Free Software Foundation, Patent Reform Is Not Enough, 1996, 615 words.
• Michael Kremer, Patent Buyouts: A Mechanism for Encouraging Innovation, Quarterly Journal of Economics 113(4):1137-1167, November 1998.
• Robin Hanson, Could Gambling Save Science? Encouraging an Honest Consensus. Social Epistemology 9(1):3-33, 1995, 13,900 words.

Law

• Steven Landsburg, We Find Ourselves ... Guilty - Should We Punish Juries That Get It Wrong?, Slate, May 19, 2003, 860 words.
• Steven Landsburg, A Modest Proposal to Improve Judicial Incentives, in Entrepreneurial Economics, 2 pages.
• Morgan Reyonds, Privatizing Probation and Parole, NCPA Poilcy Report, June 1, 2000, 17 pages.
• Law as a Private Good, Economics and Philosophy 10:319-327, 1994, 6 pages, 3285 words.
• Tyler Cowen, Rejoinder to David Friedman on the Economics of Anarchy, Economics and Philosophy, 1065 words.
• Robin Hanson, Double or Nothing Lawsuits, October 1997.

Government

• Wikipedia, World Government, 3277 words.
• Gordon Tullock, Trading Citizenship, Kyklos 50(2):251-52, 1997.
• Wikipedia, Sortition, 1350 words.
• Robin Hanson, Futarchy: Vote Values, But Bet Beliefs, August 2000, 850 words.