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Concern over the cost of excessive media coverage has increased in recent years. This paper offers an explanation of excessive coverage as an application of the tragedy of the commons, resulting from a lack of property rights over a story. News organizations consider only their private costs in covering a story, not the external costs of lower quality of overall coverage and invasion of privacy. However, restricting access to a story can also facilitate censorship. This paper consider means of limiting access which do not compromise journalistic freedom, specifically examining the parallel to tradeable discharge permits in environmental economics.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that entrepreneurs are motivated not only by the desire to maximize profits but also by the desire for mastery. It then attempts to analyze the implications of mastery seeking for the economics and politics of government privileges and favors for businesses.

Using the existing psychological literature on mastery as motivation the paper first attempts to conceptualize how the desire for mastery manifests itself in the context of entrepreneurship. Next, it attempts to clarify the implications of this for the existing literature on the effects of government policies promoting cronyism.

The paper argues that in business mastery involves producing a good product or service, and validation of the performance occurs via the choices of sovereign consumers. Mastery is thus achieved through participation in a process of competition that is free from government favors. Given that crony polices can disrupt the consumer choice process and consequently the validation of performance, they can therefore affect the types of individuals who become entrepreneurs, with a high level of government intervention pushing success seekers to pursue mastery in other life endeavors, with adverse implications for innovation and growth in the economy.

The exploration of implications of a plausible but underexplored motive for entrepreneurs and the interaction between this motive and the effects of various policies fostering cronyism or rent seeking are potential contributions of the paper.

Outlines the theory of public choice (i.e. the equilibrium of a formal political model based on functions: not politicians) and identifies some reasons why US politicians may actually vote for rent seeking (“pork barrel”) projects. Suggests that they include the need for election, campaign contributions and financial or non‐financial (ideological) personal gain; and considers the implications for political reforms such as term limits, rules on campaign finance etc. Discusses how the motives of individual politicians can be discovered and some additional applications of this idea.

To date, Congressional ideology has been considered to be the portion of a roll call vote that could not be explained by self‐interested behavior. This paper suggests that the scope of what is considered self‐interested behavior must be expanded. We find evidence that Congressmen may be the agent in a principal agent relationship, not only to voters and PACs as commonly thought, but also to industries that may offer Congressmen employment when they leave the House.

The term “dynamics of interventionism” refers to a social process, i.e., a sequence of adjustments to change over time, among a great many individuals, who largely share a common set of rules of interaction.¹ It is constituted by the unintended consequences at the interface between the governmental and market processes, when the scope of government is either expanding or contracting in relation to the market. Interventionism is the doctrine or system based on the limited use of political means (i.e., legitimized violent aggression (Oppenheimer, 1975[1914])) to address problems identified with laissez-faire capitalism. Thus, an intervention refers to the use of, or the threat of using, political means to influence non-violent actions and exchanges. Supporters of interventionism do not completely reject the institutions of capitalism, such as private property and the price system, but do favor using piecemeal interventions that extend beyond so-called minimal-state capitalism² in order to combat suspected failures or abuses they associate with the unhampered market. Examples of this would include, but are not limited to, market power, externality, asymmetric information, income inequality, racial and sexual discrimination, and the business cycle.

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the vulnerability of Florida’s coastal destinations to climate change and the costs of the adaptation measures required to cope with the impacts of climate change in a range of current and future scenarios.

The paper illustrates a range of current and projected climate change scenarios in Florida, the challenges the state is already experiencing in dealing with the impacts of climate change and some of the measures adopted to date in three particularly vulnerable coastal destinations, namely Fort Lauderdale, Miami Beach and Sarasota.

Although tourism is the number one industry in Florida, the state holds a particularly vulnerable position with respect to climate change. The vacuum of political will to address these issues at the state level is thus of particular concern given the vulnerable position of Florida’s coastal areas. With nearly 10 percent of its land area lying at less than one meter above the present sea level, adaptation is especially urgent in Florida. The local government of Florida’s cities such as Fort Lauderdale, Miami Beach and Sarasota are not willing to surrender to sea level rise (SLR). However, without a strong political will to address climate change at the state and federal levels, the costs of adapting to an escalating SLR are becoming progressively unsustainable.

This illustrative case study paper provides a contemporary synthesis of the implications for Florida’s coastal tourism destinations of rising sea levels and those adaptation strategies deemed appropriate in the search for their longer-term sustainability.

This paper aims to analyse the factors that influence frugal innovation (FI) in micro- and small enterprises (MSEs) at the base of the pyramid (BOP) through the theoretical lens of dynamic capabilities. The input–process–output (I-P-O) framework was used as a tool to support the analysis of FI as a process.

A multiple case study was performed with 25 MSEs at the BOP in Brazil, all of which were in the food industry.

This study indicates that dynamic capabilities are present in enterprises that are migrating to low income and middle-class consumers, which influences their FI practices. To analyse FI in the context of MSEs at the BOP, the I-P-O framework was adapted. Enterprises that have focussed on extremely poor and subsistence markets develop more disruptive innovation, aiming to reduce the final prices they charge consumers. The primary focus of these enterprises is on maintaining ordinary capabilities. Enterprises that have focussed on low income and middle-class customers have implemented incremental innovation, adding value based on colonial tastes and close relationships with their consumers. Such a strategy demands changes in the physical facilities, use of social media and investment in quality control of these enterprises. Considerations for policymakers and institutions are also presented.

The use of a dynamic capabilities lens in such a context is a new approach and provides a relevant basis for further studies. The study has identified different approaches to FI and different sets of barriers and successful practices, both related to the target market segment, that could leverage FI. This study contributes to case studies from Brazil, spreading the research context beyond Asia.