CONDEMNED POLITICIANS

Overprotected Politicians

This paper argues that politicians are overprotected. The costs of political assassination differ systematically depending on whether a private or a public point of view is taken. A politician attributes a very high (if not infinite) cost to his or her survival. The social cost of political assassination is much smaller as politicians are replaceable. Conversely, the private cost of the securit...

Bad Politicians

We present a simple theory of the quality (competence and honesty) of elected officials. Our theory offers three main insights. Low-quality citizens have a ‘comparative advantage’ in pursuing elective office, because their market wages are lower than those of high-quality citizens (competence), and/or because they reap higher returns from holding office (honesty). Hence, voters may find themsel...

When Topologists Are Politicians...

Fungi: too evolved to be condemned.

The Hardware Companies, Condemned to Evolve

Network infrastructure companies are now having difficulty surviving after the collapse of the dot coms. Drops of eighty percent in the market price of companies such as SUN Microsystems and CISCO do not allow for optimism in the hardware sector. An important part of the depreciation of these companies is due to the fall of the dot com companies, who were the principal customers of these manufa...