- Original Message -
From: Wei Dai [EMAIL PROTECTED]
One factor that keeps large corporations honest is the threats of hostile
takeovers and bankruptcy. Unfortunately neither of these seem likely to
apply to a large nation-as-corporation. Imagine creditors trying to force
everyone
--- Alypius Skinner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
'John Hull wrote:
1. The program will prevent poor from coming to the
States. I think that's wrong'
So you think its wrong to demand that poor people
respect private property rights
That's a bit of a non sequitur. :)
Nope. All I was saying
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that you wish to
speculate in U.S. Citizenship Stocks, UCS for
short--pronounced yuks. By low sell high, and all
that sort of thing.
Assume that:
1. An individual is free to own many UCS
2. Non-human legal entities may own UCS
3. There is no legally
Eric Crampton:
The break-up value shouldn't be less than the value of the assets in
the country
Only if the New Institutionlaists are all wet about asset specificity.
Me, I think that the value of individual assets is _embedded_ in
specific locations, relations, uses, contracts, plans, etc.
Hi. I'm on vacation, and can't respond to this thread much now, but
will when I get back in a week and a half. But for now let me confirm
that we can think of this discussion in two steps. One, assuming that
a CEO maximized share value of a nation, what would they do wrong or
right. And
In a message dated 8/14/02 8:21:54 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
However, the two statements are compatible.
In society there are minorities with little power and other minorities with
much power. For example, a country could have a ruling elite with much
wealth and power, and also despised
On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Misha Gambarian wrote:
On the other side, if we allow people to buy more than one share (as it
happens in real corporations) - then I think we can expect that rich
people will buy many shares (as they do in existing real corporations)
to get political influence more
Eric Crampton wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]">
On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Misha Gambarian wrote:
On the other side, if we allow people to buy more than one share (as ithappens in real corporations) - then I think we can expect that richpeople will buy many shares (as they do in existing real
On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Misha Gambarian wrote:
Here you assume that all GDP income is distributed as dividents -
doesn't look probable. If people assume that their normal income is
dividents this still doesn't work, because of income inequality.
Not assuming that at all. Just trying to get a
On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, john hull wrote:
to pay. Do you think a firm would take the risk of
plunking down that kind of money for a
multi-generation debt?
It would likely depend a lot on how property rights over shares work out
and how liens on shares would be treated. If the market price did
Imagine that a nation like the US were run like a corporation. To live
(and vote) here, you'd have to own a share. You could sell your share and
leave, and foreigners could come if they bought a share. The corporate
management would be given financial incentives to maximize the market value
Imagine that a nation like the US were run like a corporation. To live
How would you enforce shareholder rights and monitor managers? For
corporations inside nations, one could appeal to the state for law
enforcement or start a lawsuit. What recourse do shareholders have in
such a worlds
These are very interesting questions! This would clearly affect the
decision to have children in one of two ways (that I can think of):
1. Couples would have fewer children if they had to purchase a share
for each child they had.
2. Couples would have more children if they were granted a
How would we know what price to charge for a share?
Would the U.S. have a monopoly?
Or would it compete with other nations?
What would we do about people who try to sneak in without buying a share?
Will people be required to proove at any time they own a share or be deported (or
worse)?
--- Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Imagine that a nation like the US were run like a corporation. To live
(and vote) here, you'd have to own a share. You could sell your share and
leave, and foreigners could come if they bought a share. The corporate
management would be given
Cyril Morong wrote:
How would we know what price to charge for a share?
There's be an open market which would set prices.
Would the U.S. have a monopoly?
A monopoly on rights to live in the US, but other places are substitutes.
What would we do about people who try to sneak in without buying
Fred Foldvary wrote:
Imagine that a nation like the US were run like a corporation. To live
(and vote) here, you'd have to own a share. You could sell your share and
leave, and foreigners could come if they bought a share. The corporate
management would be given financial incentives to
Fabio wrote:
Imagine that a nation like the US were run like a corporation. To live
How would you enforce shareholder rights and monitor managers? For
corporations inside nations, one could appeal to the state for law
enforcement or start a lawsuit. What recourse do shareholders have
In a message dated 8/14/02 3:37:34 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
The problem is central planning. The US corporation would be a giant
enterprise subject to the inefficiencies of any large organization.
Also, minority interests would be overpowered as they are now.
Would government spending
It's not clear (to me, anyway.) If new people were extremely
productive, it seems that managers may want to encourage that type of
person to be born, so they may give parents free shares for the
child. If new people aren't very productive, then giving away shares
for free doesn't make much
Are state-enforced lawsuits really what keeps large multinational
corporations honest now? If not, then the concept here is to use
mechanisms similar to whatever large corporations now use.
Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hanson.gmu.edu
Multinationals come in different flavors.
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
minority interests would be overpowered as they are now.
would be under similar special-interest influence
Rereading the two passages, I wonder if there isn't a contraction.
There is no contraction, but one could read into it a contradiction.
However, the two
On Wed, Aug 14, 2002 at 01:24:12PM -0400, Robin Hanson wrote:
Imagine that a nation like the US were run like a corporation. To live
(and vote) here, you'd have to own a share. You could sell your share and
leave, and foreigners could come if they bought a share. The corporate
If we assume that most people of USA have exactly one share, then
changes from current system are mostly in immigration law - citizenship
is for sale, and people are rewarded if they leave country and drop
citizenship. We can expect much more rich immigrants and huge increase
in government (INS)
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