Blockchain Networks as Knowledge Commons

Researchers interested in blockchains are increasingly attuned to questions of governance, including how blockchains relate to government, the ways blockchains are governed, and ways blockchains can improve prospects for successful self-governance. Our paper joins this research by exploring the implications of the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework to analyze governance of blockchains. Our novel contributions are making the case that blockchain networks represent knowledge commons governance, in the sense that they rely on collectively-managed technologies to pool and manage distributed information, illustrating the usefulness and novelty of the GCK methodology with an empirical case study of the evolution of Bitcoin, and laying the foundation for a research program using the GKC approach

The Tragedy of the Nurdles: Governing Global Externalities

Nurdles have been referred to by some as a global environmental disaster. However, relative to the controversies surrounding industrial fracking practices, such as public health and safety associated with extraction of shale gas (as well as shale oil), the problems with nurdles are not as widely known. In this article, we highlight that fracking and nurdles are interrelated: fracking processes are a major source of the raw materials used to produce nurdles, which are tiny plastic pellets polluting our waters. Our contention is that a key question for analysis of fracking is how to regulate the externalities associated with downstream products produced in the fracking process. This article takes insights from Elinor Ostrom and scholars of the Bloomington School of Political Economy—such as polycentricity, diversity of collective action problems (CAPs), coproduction, and institutional diversity—to analyze nurdles pollution as a global commons problem. Nurdles generate widespread, large-scale negative externalities that are difficult to contain and address within a fixed geographical boundary governed by a static jurisdictional authority. Using the case of the Royal Dutch Shell cracker plant in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, we show that nurdles present complex and nested challenges that require coproduction, with citizen monitoring playing an essential role in mitigating negative externalities. We demonstrate the efficacy of applying polycentric approaches toward addressing CAPs associated with nurdles

Individualism, economic freedom, and charitable giving

We investigate the role of individualistic social rules and norms in charitable giving. Individualism in market societies is often criticized as corrupting morality and discouraging charitable giving. We contest that view. We propose direct and indirect mechanisms through which individualism increases charity. In the direct channel, individualism encourages self-interested giving. In the indirect channel, individualism contributes to charity by reinforcing economic freedom. We use evidence from a large cross-section of countries and several measures of individualism to investigate both channels. Our empirical findings confirm each channel and support the insights of classical liberals, such as Adam Smith and David Hume, and more recent studies in the humanomics tradition, which recovers the argument that individualism has its virtues

Ostrom Amongst the Machines: Blockchain as a Knowledge Commons

Blockchains are distributed ledger technologies that allow the recording of any data structure, including money, property titles, and contracts. In this paper, we suggest that Hayekian political economy is especially well suited to explain how blockchain emerged, but that Elinor Ostrom’s approach to commons governance is particularly useful to understand why blockchain anarchy is successful. Our central conclusions are that the blockchain can be thought of as a spontaneous order, as Hayek anticipated, as well as a knowledge commons, as Ostrom’s studies of self-governance anticipated

A Property-Rights Mismatch Approach to Passive-Active Spectrum Use Coexistence

Policies and regulations governing electromagnetic spectrum prioritize reducing conflict among active users of spectrum (transmitters), thereby enabling these active users to capture the values associated with property rights to spectrum. Coexistence of heterogeneous technologies and their enforcement have been well studied, but much less has been done to consider the coexistence of heterogeneous uses and the institutions that are necessary to address conflict arising among different users of spectrum. We argue that prevailing property-rights institutions that focus on reducing conflict among active users of spectrum generate a property mismatch that contributes to conflict with passive users of spectrum. Passive users are interested primarily in receiving signals transmitted by nature. The property-mismatch approach offers insight into how to redesign spectrum governance to balance the demands of both active and passive users. Particularly we argue that virtual parceling of the electromagnetic spectrum along a broader range of dimensions can better facilitate efficient spectrum sharing between active and passive users