research
Journal articles, working papers, and works in progress.
Journal Articles
- Seeing Like a Colony: The Virginia Land SurveyorPeter K. Hazlett and Patrick FitzsimmonsEuropean Economic Review, 2026
Surveyors in colonial Virginia were among the wealthiest members of society, with a social status rivaling that of members of the House of Burgesses and plantation owners. Many received large land grants from the Governor’s Council, which directly led to their wealth. We argue that allowing surveyors to acquire extensive land holdings advanced the colonial government’s ambition to expand the boundaries of the colony, most effectively achieved by settling people on the frontier. Surveyors, who had a comparative advantage in knowing the geography, location, and quality of unclaimed land, could reduce the measurement and search costs associated with locating fertile tracts. By granting property rights to the western frontier to surveyors, the government enabled them to identify the best lands and sell them to settlers, thereby lowering transaction costs in land markets. Using newly constructed data on Virginia surveyors, land grant records, and maps of surveyors’ land, we provide evidence of how surveyors acquired agriculturally productive land to sell to incoming settlers.
@article{hazlett2026surveyor, type_group = {Journal Articles}, title = {Seeing Like a Colony: The Virginia Land Surveyor}, author = {Hazlett, Peter K. and Fitzsimmons, Patrick}, journal = {European Economic Review}, volume = {185}, pages = {105274}, year = {2026}, doi = {10.1016/j.euroecorev.2026.105274}, } - Can Markets Improve Recycling Performance? A Cross-Country Regression Analysis and Case StudiesPeter K. Hazlett, Elena C. Prenovitz, and Chandler S. ReillySustainability, 2023
Can recycling reduce negative externalities created by landfills? Environmentalists argue yes; however, the efficiency of recycling will be institutionally contingent. Entrepreneurs will face less barriers to profit from recycling in countries with more economic freedom. Additionally, recycling conducted by private firms will be more cost-effective and have higher rates of innovation in recycling technology relative to a nationalized industry. The purpose of this study is to test these claims. First, a two-way fixed effects regression model is estimated using panel data from 34 countries over the years 2000 to 2019. Our regression results show that increases in economic freedom have a positive effect on recycling rates, independent of related policy effects. Second, using two brief case studies of the Republic of Korea and Taiwan, we show how the inefficiencies of bureaucratic management suggest that private industry can be a less costly solution to encouraging recycling. The empirical results and case studies strongly suggest that increases in economic freedom can be an important mechanism for increasing recycling rates, and private industry involvement in existing recycling programs can limit unnecessary costs.
@article{hazlett2023recycling, type_group = {Journal Articles}, title = {Can Markets Improve Recycling Performance? A Cross-Country Regression Analysis and Case Studies}, author = {Hazlett, Peter K. and Prenovitz, Elena C. and Reilly, Chandler S.}, journal = {Sustainability}, volume = {15}, number = {6}, pages = {4785}, year = {2023}, doi = {10.3390/su15064785}, } - The Redistributive Politics of Monetary PolicyLouis Rouanet and Peter K. HazlettPublic Choice, 2023
Monetary policy and institutions are far from exempt from political influences. In this paper, we analyze monetary institutions not as being run by either benevolent technocrats or a wealth maximizing Leviathan, but as being the outcome of competition between interest groups trying to capture wealth transfers. We argue that while interest groups gaining from specific monetary policies and institutions can easily identify themselves, losers often cannot. As a result, losers have a harder time fighting back and both the organization of money production and monetary policy are shaped by political competition between rent-seekers. We use our framework to analyze modern developments in monetary policies and institutions, namely 1) the Fed’s reaction to the 2007 financial crisis, 2) the Fed’s reaction to the COVID crisis, 3) the establishment and development of the Euro.
@article{hazlett2023monetary, type_group = {Journal Articles}, title = {The Redistributive Politics of Monetary Policy}, author = {Rouanet, Louis and Hazlett, Peter K.}, journal = {Public Choice}, volume = {194}, number = {1-2}, pages = {1-26}, year = {2023}, doi = {10.1007/s11127-022-01009-w}, } - Bureaucratic Rent Creation: The Case of Price Discrimination in the Market for Postsecondary EducationPeter K. Hazlett and Chandler S. ReillyConstitutional Political Economy, 2023
Under political competition, bureaucrats who wish to maintain their jobs and salaries must continue to stimulate demand for their agency’s services in order to secure funding. This paper suggests that one way a bureau can do so is by creating avenues for private entities to collect rents through entrepreneurial action. The Federal Student Aid office in the U.S. Department of Education and their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) can serve as an example. By getting students to fill out a FAFSA application, colleges obtain the detailed financial information of students and families. Colleges can then use this information to price discriminate. The bureau’s derived benefits from this behavior are two-fold: (1) Private interests groups can lobby political sponsors to continue funding the agency. Using data obtained from lobbying reports filed with the federal government, we find that there is a positive relationship between lobbying expenditures and the implementation of regulations that enhance the value of the rents associated with the FAFSA. (2) The source of the rents can be used as a performance indicator to meet the demands of political sponsors. Drawing from the five-year strategic plans from the Department of Education and the Federal Student Aid office, we find that these bureaus can benefit from engaging in such behavior.
@article{hazlett2023fafsa, type_group = {Journal Articles}, title = {Bureaucratic Rent Creation: The Case of Price Discrimination in the Market for Postsecondary Education}, author = {Hazlett, Peter K. and Reilly, Chandler S.}, journal = {Constitutional Political Economy}, volume = {34}, number = {2}, pages = {226-256}, year = {2023}, doi = {10.1007/s10602-022-09365-x}, } - Is Bitcoin Money? (And What That Means)Peter K. Hazlett and William J. LutherThe Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 2020
In a recent article, Yermack (2015) argues that bitcoin is not money because it functions poorly as a medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value. We offer a more conventional view. We maintain that the standard approach classifies an item as money if and only if it functions as a commonly-accepted medium of exchange. Then, we show that the demand for bitcoin is comparable to the demand for many government-issued monies. Finally, we argue that bitcoin is money—though perhaps only over a relatively small domain at present.
@article{hazlett2020bitcoin, type_group = {Journal Articles}, title = {Is Bitcoin Money? (And What That Means)}, author = {Hazlett, Peter K. and Luther, William J.}, journal = {The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance}, volume = {77}, pages = {144-149}, year = {2020}, doi = {10.1016/j.qref.2019.10.003}, }
Under Review
- Weights and MeasuresPeter K. Hazlett, William J. Luther, and Phil W. MagnessRevise & Resubmit, Journal of Institutional Economics
Conventional wisdom maintains that governments should enforce uniform weights and measures. We offer an alternative view: in the absence of government support or deterrence, standards of measurement will be adopted when the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs. We construct a simple model to identify the conditions necessary for a system of measures to gain universal adoption without a government’s guiding hand, as well as those that will see the system persist or be discarded when an alternative system of measures is presented. In this model, each prevailing outcome is efficient. We explore the history of customary measurements in light of our model and review government efforts to influence the system of measures.
Working Papers
- Neighboring: The Economics of Puritan OrganizationPeter K. Hazlett and Peter T. LeesonWorking paper
The Puritans faced a unique externality problem arising from their theology. They believed God would punish entire communities through crop failures, natural disasters, disease, attacks from indigenous tribes, and episodes of witchcraft for the sin of a single individual, making the sin of one the sin for all. To solve this, Puritans settled in compact towns, enabling the acute monitoring of one another’s behavior. To test this hypothesis, we construct an original dataset of New England towns settled in the seventeenth century using eighteenth- and nineteenth-century books on town histories. We find that more religious towns were more compactly settled, while less religious towns were less compactly settled. This theory helps explain why centralized land demarcating institutions, which aided the Puritans in constructing compact settlement layouts, were often present in New England but absent in other American colonies.
- The Economics of New England WitchcraftPeter K. HazlettWorking paper
The study of witch trials in 17th-century colonial New England has spurred various explanations, involving factors like disease, poisoning, weather, and the competitive religious landscape. In this paper, I argue witchcraft accusations were used as a means to redistribute property. The majority of those accused of witchcraft were women who lacked sons or brothers, individuals who would have been in line to inherit land following the death of their husbands. Unable to work the land, these women found themselves exempt from tax obligations and sometimes trapped in a state of impoverishment, often reliant on community support. By making accusations of witchcraft against these vulnerable women, communities could transfer their land to individuals capable of actively cultivating it, thereby improving the fiscal conditions of the town.
Works in Progress
- Too Afraid to Play: Forfeiting in American Junior TennisPeter K. Hazlett, Chandler S. Reilly, and Rishab SardanaWork in progress
The United States Tennis Association (USTA) National Hard Court Championships is the most prestigious junior tennis tournament in America. From 2003 to 2024, an unsettling trend has emerged: the percentage of forfeited matches has more than doubled, rising from 4.6% to nearly 10% across all age groups. We argue that the emergence of the Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) system has contributed to this increase. As UTR has grown in importance for college recruiting and players’ collegiate careers, players now face stronger incentives to forfeit matches where a loss, or a less decisive win, could negatively impact their UTR. We test alternative explanations, including rising injury rates and climate changes, but find no significant effects. Additionally, during our study period, we observe an increased likelihood of higher-seeded players forfeiting to lower-seeded opponents. This trend suggests that higher-rated players are more frequently forfeiting to lower-rated players, further supporting UTR as a primary mechanism.
- The Industrial Organization of Prohibition-era GangsHenry A. Thompson and Peter K. HazlettWork in progress
During Prohibition (1920–1933), organized crime participated in illegal alcohol and gambling markets both by producing and distributing goods directly and by supplying protection to independent operators in exchange for payment. In some cases, such as alcohol distribution and slot machines, gangs owned the relevant enterprises and assets outright. In others, such as illicit alcohol manufacturing or gambling houses, they collected payments from existing enterprises while offering protection—often under the threat of violence. We approach this variation in ownership from the perspective of team production and model the extort-vs-own decisions made by organized crime as attempts to facilitate optimal property rights arrangements within a team. We argue that in situations of team production, firm ownership follows the team member whose total contribution is most difficult to measure as this economizes on total measurement costs. Therefore, organized crime extorts a victim when the victim’s total contribution is difficult to measure relative to the gang’s but opts to own outright victims when the gang’s total contribution is difficult to measure relative to the victim’s. This theory explains organized crime’s decision to extort illicit alcohol manufacturers, retailers, and gambling policymakers but own outright alcohol distribution and slot machine operations.