Ohio School Milk Markets: An Analysis of Bidding

We examine the institutional details of the school milk procurement process, bidding data, statements of dairy executives, and supply characteristics in Ohio during the 1980's. We compare the bidding behavior of a group of firms to a control group. We find that the behavior of each of the firms differs from that of the control group. We argue that the behavior of these firms is consistent with collusion. The estimated average effect of collusion on market prices is about six and one half percent, or roughly the cost of shipping school milk about 50 miles.

Slavery and Athens’ Economic Efflorescence: Mill Slavery as a Case Study

Following a recent wave of literature arguing for significant growth in the ancient Greek economy, several ground-breaking books have sought to explain this phenomenon through the lens of New Institutional Economics (NIE). The undeniable prevalence of slavery throughout ancient Greek history, however, has not been substantially integrated into these new analyses. This essay intends to address this problem, by elucidating some of the ways in which slavery contributed to the economic efflorescence of Greece’s late archaic and classical period (600–300 BC) within an institutionally focused approach. Examining specifically the state of Athens, this study contends that not only did the system of slavery import a vast amount of labour from other areas of the Mediterranean into the Athenian polity, but it also directed labour towards economically productive aims that were otherwise  limited by Athens’ societal framework. The use of slaves in milling operations provides a key and often overlooked example, which will here be used as a case study