This paper explores the nature of governance both within and by blockchains and the economies they support. There is a widespread assumption that the proper governance model for these economies is political, i.e., democratic voting. In this paper we make an alternative claim, namely that a more...

What assets does a firm need to hold to develop a profitable business model? A ‘Hart asset’ is an asset that a firm cannot strategically afford a rival firm to own or control due to the risk of hold up, and therefore must be held within the firm, and upon which a profitable business model...

Blockchain (distributed ledger technology) is an institutional technology that allows trust to be manufactured instead of being earned. Trust is an important component of business and trade and has previously been subsumed into information costs. It is only now that the importance of trust is...

This paper introduces the V-form organisation, a new form of firm organisation where vertical integration is outsourced to a decentralized distributed ledger (a blockchain). V-form organisations rely on the coordination of a (trusted) third party. It looks specifically at two instances of V-form...

In modern innovation economics, the underlying economic problems are market failure in private investment in new ideas, along with the coordination problems and the disruptive consequences of innovation. Innovation policy addresses the innovation problem with government action. Drawing upon the...

Democracy is an economic problem of choice constrained by transaction costs and information costs. Society must choose between competing institutional frameworks for the conduct of voting and elections. These decisions are constrained by the technologies and institutions available. Blockchains...

Claims blockchain is more than just ICT innovation, but facilitates new types of economic organization and governance. Suggests two approaches to economics of blockchain: innovation-centred and governance-centred. Argues that the governance approach — based in new institutional economics and...

Distributed ledger technology, invented for cryptocurrencies, is increasingly understood as a new general-purpose technology for a broad range of economic activities that rely on consensus of a database of transactions or records. However, blockchains are more than just a disruptive new ICT....

This paper investigates the industrial organization of casino gambling and develops a theory of the casino as an economic institution which emerges to reduce transaction costs. This theory is based upon the insight that the play of table games – typically seen as a production process or as a...

This paper examines how national innovation policies strategically interact to form emergent de facto global innovation policies from the perspective of seven distinct economic models. We consider the case for a global coordinating institute – a World Innovation Organization – to address the...