Papers by Ilia Murtazashvili
Sustainability
Nurdles have been referred to by some as a global environmental disaster. However, relative to th... more 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, larg...
Public Administration Review
International Journal of the Commons
Public Choice
We argue that criminal justice institutions must be accessible to citizens, legitimate and have c... more We argue that criminal justice institutions must be accessible to citizens, legitimate and have capacity to enforce law. Such was the case with the military societies of the Plains Indians: a system of criminal justice that predated the time of European contact and which remained a significant source of law and order in Indian country until the Indian Wars concluded at the end of the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, the federal government attempted to replace military societies with federal police starting circa 1850. Despite such attempts, we show that military societies remain an important institution for criminal justice on the contemporary Northern Cheyenne Reservation. When the federal government shirked on policing during the coronavirus pandemic, military societies took over important policing functions. This does not mean that traditional military societies should replace federal enforcement; rather, it shows that until the quality of federal policing improves, traditional i...
SSRN Electronic Journal
COVID-19 is the most recent example of the vulnerability of American Indian reservations to pande... more COVID-19 is the most recent example of the vulnerability of American Indian reservations to pandemic disease. The Navajo Nation's COVID-19 infection rate is higher than that of any US state-even New York. 1 This is especially puzzling when considering population density. The Navajo Nation encompasses over 27,000 square miles and has a population of about 150,000 people. 2 By contrast, New York City, where most of New York's COVID-19 cases are concentrated, has 8 million plus residents in just over 300 square miles. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mercatus Center has commissioned this series of working papers and policy briefs to promote effective ideas among key decision makers. These publications have been internally reviewed but not peer reviewed.
Journal of Institutional Economics
Bart Wilson argues that property is based on custom, not rights. Wilson (2022) further argues for... more Bart Wilson argues that property is based on custom, not rights. Wilson (2022) further argues for the primacy of property over property rights. Wilson's research, including the recent book, The Property Species: Mine, Yours, and the Human Mind (2020), is a significant and arguably pathbreaking contribution to the vast literature on property and property rights. It also falls into the trap of economic arguments that unnecessarily devalue legal rights. I ague that we can all agree that ideas about property are always important to understanding property rights but that property rights still rule. This is in part because those who have property typically care most about property rights. I also argue that Wilson's concept of property is too focused on private ownership, rather than shared ownership or even government ownership of property. I suggest that considering the idea of sharing and other legitimate forms of property ownership alongside private ownership would generalize W...
Frontiers in Blockchain
Studies of blockchain governance can be divided into analyses of the governance of blockchains (s... more Studies of blockchain governance can be divided into analyses of the governance of blockchains (such as rules and power dynamics within a given network) and governance by blockchains (such as how blockchains can be implemented to improve self-governance of community-based peer production networks). Less emphasis has been placed on applications of distributed ledgers to public sector governance. Our review clarifies that the decentralization and distributive features that enable blockchains to link up loosely connected private organizations and public agencies to improve efficiency and transparency of government transactions. However, most blockchain applications lack clear advantages over the conventional digital recording of information. In addition, our review highlights that blockchain applications in public sector governance are potentially vast, though in most instances, the existing applications have not extended much beyond limited-scale pilots. We conclude with a call for th...
Political Economy - Development: Public Service Delivery eJournal, 2019
The paper argues that it is necessary to consider fracking from a political economy perspective t... more The paper argues that it is necessary to consider fracking from a political economy perspective to understand the key features of the shale boom, including why the benefits appear to exceed the costs. Several schools of thought provide insight into the performance of political-economic systems, including institutional economics, Austrian economics, the Bloomington School of institutional analysis, and public choice (Boettke and Leeson 2015). Despite many differences, recent work suggests that these schools of thought remain complementary (Boettke and Lopez 2002; Leeson and Subrick 2006). The U.S. shale boom illustrates the complementarity of these political economy perspectives. Austrian economics, with its insight into entrepreneurial leadership and vision, as well as creative destruction as a result of technological change, provides insight into the origin and consequences of fracking technology. Economic institutions, especially the robust system of private property rights to min...
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021
We consider an approach based on property rights mismatch to analyze conflict over radio spectrum... more We consider an approach based on property rights mismatch to analyze conflict over radio spectrum. A mismatch occurs when the bundle of property rights created to enable social coordination fails to achieve this objective, leading to missed opportunities for productive exchange. With radio spectrum, these conflicts often result from technological changes that increase prospects (and satisfy demand for) sharing spectrum. Our focus is on how property regimes contribute to conflict as a result of mismatch, as well as how they might be resolved, for two examples of spectrum: passive and active spectrum uses and mobile services on the unlicensed band.
When Fracking Comes to Town, 2022
Journal of Institutional Economics, 2022
Institutional economists have analyzed permissionless blockchains as a novel institutional buildi... more Institutional economists have analyzed permissionless blockchains as a novel institutional building block for voluntary economic exchange and distributed governance, with their unique protocol features such as automated contract execution, high levels of network and process transparency, and uniquely distributed governance. But such institutional analysis needs to be complemented by polycentric analysis of how blockchains change. We characterize such change as resulting from internal sources and external sources. Internal sources include constitutional (protocol) design and collective-choice processes for updating protocols, which help coordinate network participants and users. External sources include competitive pressure from other cryptocurrency networks. By studying two leading networks, Bitcoin and Ethereum, we illustrate how conceptualizing blockchains as competing and constitutional polycentric enterprises clarifies their processes of change.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021
The structure and operation of blockchains are dynamic, which means that mechanisms must exist fo... more The structure and operation of blockchains are dynamic, which means that mechanisms must exist for implementing changes. The New Institutional Economics (NIE), with its emphasis on how rules govern the performance of any complex organization or network, provides an especially useful framework to consider governance of blockchains. We consider how NIE has been applied to blockchain and future applications. Our analysis is divided into consideration of blockchain as an institutional technology, blockchain as a polycentric enterprise, and the ways to empirically research blockchain. The Institutional Analysis and Design (IAD) framework developed by Elinor Ostrom is particularly useful to develop an empirical research agenda for comparing the institutional features of blockchains and, ultimately, to comparing their performance.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020
Permission-less (or public) block-chain networks are a new form of decentralized private governan... more Permission-less (or public) block-chain networks are a new form of decentralized private governance in the digital sphere. Though legal scholars recognize the significance of law in the use of block-chain, existing research using legal and institutional perspectives leaves block-chain governance as something of a black box. We provide a more granular analysis, finding that block-chain governance operates on four distinct levels. Governance at the protocol layer involves discrete institutional design choices intended to constrain network members’ incentives in an ongoing sense. Subsidiary governance arises from the need for communities to draft protocol updates and from the fact that governance protocol design choices create discrete concentrations of political power within the network. Competitive governance forces arise because cryptocurrency networks are constrained by the possibility of exit of participants and users to other alternatives. Finally, in terms of superior governance, permission-less cryptocurrency participants and users are subject to a variety of laws and regulations due to how cryptocurrencies implicate property, contracts, tax, and securities law. Since the interaction of these governance aspects shapes the operation of any given network, legal and regulatory governance of block-chain ought to consider permission-less block-chains as confronting political and governance dilemmas much like any complex organization. Predicting the effect legal and regulatory treatment of permission-less block-chains requires an accurate understanding of the incentives of their members, all of which are greatly shaped by the governance forces we outline in detail here.
Journal of Institutional Economics, 2021
Property institutions should ideally provide economic actors with certainty that their local choi... more Property institutions should ideally provide economic actors with certainty that their local choices about investment will not be unsettled by shifting political economic equilibria. We argue that for this to occur, political autonomy, administrative and enforcement capacity, political constraints, and accessible legal institutions are each necessary. A comparison of the evolution of property rights for settlers and American Indians in the United States shows how political and legal forces shape the evolution of property institutions. American Indians, who had property institutions before Europeans arrived, could not defend their land from Europeans and later Americans due to lacking military capacity. Settlers' property rights were relatively secure because the government had sufficient autonomy and capacity to broadly define and enforce their rights, political institutions constrained the government from expropriating settlers' property, and legal institutions provided a f...
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Papers by Ilia Murtazashvili