The current debate over privacy presents some of the most complex policy-making challenges we have seen in some time. While data on consumers have long been used for marketing purposes, the Internet has substantially increased the flow of personal information. This has produced great benefits, but it also has raised concerns on the part of individuals about what information is being collected, how it is being used and who has access to it. These concerns, in turn, have led to calls for new government regulation. This study focuses on the market for personal information used for advertising and marketing purposes, which is the market affected by most of the regulatory and legislative proposals now under consideration. Unfortunately, there has been little careful analysis of these proposals and their likely consequences. This book attempts to fill this gap by addressing the following basic questions: Are there failures' in the market for personal information? If market failures exist, how do they adversely affect consumers? Can such failures be remedied by government regulation? Would the benefits of government regulation exceed the costs? A/LISTA The authors find that the commercial market for information appears to be working well and is responding to consumers' privacy concerns. They conclude that regulation imposed on a medium like the Internet that is changing so rapidly would have unpredictable and costly consequences. This study is a product of The Progress & Freedom Foundation's project on Regulating Personal Information: Balancing Benefits and Costs. The Progress & Freedom Foundation studies the impact of the digital revolution and its implications for public policy. It conductsresearch in fields such as electronic commerce, telecommunications and the impact of the Internet on government, society and economic growth. It also studies issues such as the need to reform government regulation, especially in technology-intensive fields such as medical innovation, energy and environmental regulation.

Some have described the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a scientific bureaucracy with police powers. Does a "cult of infallibility" exist within the FDA, leading to decisions that are contrary to the best interests of patients and their physicians? The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is one of the most powerful of federal regulatory agencies, if not the most powerful. It regulates over 25% of all consumer goods sold in the United States. It makes decisions on a daily basis that affect the lives of millions of people. While the FDA was created to protect the public, how well is it fulfilling this mission and whose interests is it actually protecting? In this book, four outstanding scholars examine how the FDA accumulated its enormous power and what effects it has had on the public. It also explores who actually benefits and loses from FDA actions, and whether alternatives exist to safeguard the health of Americans. This book raises serious questions about the wisdom of giving policing power to scientists with little oversight or appeal process, as the FDA currently does. It also argues forcefully that the FDA unnecessarily delays beneficial medicines and medical devices, many of which are routinely available in Europe, from being available to Americans.

This is the first book to examine individual rights from an economic perspective, collecting together leading articles in this emerging area of interest and showing the vibrant and expanding scholarship that relates them. Areas covered include

• The implications of constitutional protections of individual rights and freedoms, including freedom of speech and of the press,
• The right to bear arms,
• The right against unreasonable searches,
• The right against self-incrimination,
• The right to trial by jury,
• The right against cruel and unusual punishment, including capital punishment.

The focus of these papers is both theoretical and empirical, examining how economics can illuminate the entire sequence of crime and punishment, from the decision to commit a crime, to police methods for apprehending and arresting criminals, to the rules used in trials to the scope of punishment for the convicted.

The current debate over privacy presents some of the most complex policy-making challenges we have seen in some time. While data on consumers have long been used for marketing purposes, the Internet has substantially increased the flow of personal information. This has produced great benefits, but it also has raised concerns on the part of individuals about what information is being collected, how it is being used and who has access to it. These concerns, in turn, have led to calls for new government regulation. This study focuses on the market for personal information used for advertising and marketing purposes, which is the market affected by most of the regulatory and legislative proposals now under consideration. Unfortunately, there has been little careful analysis of these proposals and their likely consequences. This book attempts to fill this gap by addressing the following basic questions: * Are there 'failures' in the market for personal information? * If market failures exist, how do they adversely affect consumers? * Can such failures be remedied by government regulation? * Would the benefits of government regulation exceed the costs?GBP/LISTGBP The authors find that the commercial market for information appears to be working well and is responding to consumers' privacy concerns. They conclude that regulation imposed on a medium like the Internet that is changing so rapidly would have unpredictable and costly consequences. This study is a product of The Progress & Freedom Foundation's project on Regulating Personal Information: Balancing Benefits and Costs. The Progress & Freedom Foundation studies the impact of the digital revolution and its implications for public policy. It conducts research in fields such as electronic commerce, telecommunications and the impact of the Internet on government, society and economic growth. It also studies issues such as the need to reform government regulation, especially in technology-intensive fields such as medical innovation, energy and environmental regulation.

"In this lively and insightful book, Paul Rubin shows just how much light can be shed on the institutions of modern life by reference to our long species' history as hunter-gatherers. This is highly recommended reading."-Herbert Gintis, author of Game Theory Evolving "Full of insights and interesting connections among biology, public policy, and economics. It keeps the reader's interest and is well paced. Simply great-I enjoyed every minute of it."-Michael T. McGuire, coauthor of Darwinian Psychiatry "A lucid, responsible, thought-provoking, constructive inquiry into the biological foundations of economic behavior."-Richard Posner, judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit "This is a great book, and more than worthy of serious attention. . . . An interesting and imaginative book. . . . Wonderfully engaging."-Jason Potts, University of Queensland Darwinian Politics is the first book to examine political behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. Paul H. Rubin demonstrates why certain political-moral philosophies succeed or fail in modern Western culture. He begins by showing relationships between biology and natural selection and the history of political philosophy and explains why desirable policies must treat each person as an individual. He considers the notion of group identity and conflict, observing a human propensity to form in-groups, a behavior that does not necessitate but often leads to deviancies such as racism. In discussing altruism, Rubin shows that people are willing to aid the poor if they are convinced that the recipients are not shirkers or freeloaders. This explains why recent welfare reforms are widely viewed as successful. Rubin illustrates evolutionary premises for religious belief and for desires to regulate the behavior of others, and how in today's world such regulation may not serve any useful purpose. Ultimately, the author argues that humans naturally seek political freedom, and modern Western society provides more freedom than any previous one. Paul H. Rubin is a professor of economics and law at Emory University. He is the author of Managing Business Transactions: Controlling the Costs of Coordinating, Communicating, and Decision Making and Privacy and the Commercial Use of Personal Information.

Managing Business Transactions is the first book on the principles of a new managerial economics, based on transaction cost economics. The transaction, the basic unit of business has been studied by theoretical economists for decades. Rubin has translated their research into basic principles for managers at all levels to structure transactions to best achieve both individual and company goals. Rubin analyzes and offers strategies for transactions of all kinds.

This is the first book to examine individual rights from an economic perspective, collecting together leading articles in this emerging area of interest and showing the vibrant and expanding scholarship that relates them. Areas covered include: the implications of constitutional protections of individual rights and freedoms, including freedom of speech and of the press; the right to bear arms; the right against unreasonable searches; the right against self-incrimination; the right to trial by jury; and, the right against cruel and unusual punishment, including capital punishment. The focus of these papers is both theoretical and empirical, examining how economics can illuminate the entire sequence of crime and punishment, from the decision to commit a crime, to police methods for apprehending and arresting criminals, to the rules used in trials to the scope of punishment for the convicted.