Explore My Research

My research sits at the intersection of historical political economy, public choice, and the political economy of regulation — when regulation serves the public interest, and when it instead protects incumbents or substitutes for order that markets and communities already supply. Browse below, or filter the working papers by topic. Click any card to read more.

Working Papers

The Father of Food and Drug Law as Strategic Regulator

Dr. Harvey Wiley and the Political Economy of the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897

A public-choice reinterpretation of the 1897 Act, combining a newly hand-collected district-level panel of bonded-whiskey withdrawals, newspaper price data, and the…

Private Mechanisms for Stopping Diamond-Dybvig Runs

Evidence from U.S. Newspapers, 1889–1929

Hand-coding 544 bank runs from digitized newspapers shows that banks and their communities stopped runs with a rich toolkit of private, market-based mechanisms — even before…

Assuring Consumers of Authenticity, Safety, and Quality in Early American Whiskey Markets

Before federal regulation, whiskey was a textbook market for lemons — yet it thrived. How did entrepreneurs privately assure consumers of quality?

Bootleggers Behind the Baptists

Wine-Industry Influence in Switzerland’s 1908 Absinthe Referendum

Did wine producers — not just public-health reformers — drive Switzerland’s 1908 vote to ban absinthe? A ‘Bootleggers and Baptists’ test using a newly assembled canton-level…

Works in Progress

The End of Prohibition and Alcohol-Firm Stock Prices

Working title

Finance

Industrial Organization

Economic History

Work in Progress

An asset-pricing and industrial-organization study of how repeal of Prohibition reshaped the value of incumbent alcohol firms that had enjoyed a state-enforced oligopoly.

Alms and Ale

A Malthusian Test of Welfare Generosity and Alcohol Consumption in OECD Countries, 1995–2023

Welfare & Public Health

Public Choice

Work in Progress

Do more generous welfare states inadvertently raise demand for ‘vice’ goods like alcohol? A panel test of a Malthusian hypothesis across the OECD.

Categories

Working Papers

The Father of Food and Drug Law as Strategic Regulator

Private Mechanisms for Stopping Diamond-Dybvig Runs

Assuring Consumers of Authenticity, Safety, and Quality in Early American Whiskey Markets

Bootleggers Behind the Baptists

Works in Progress

The End of Prohibition and Alcohol-Firm Stock Prices

Alms and Ale