Publications

This list shows a selection of books and essays. Download the complete publication list (PDF).
Google Scholar Citations

Books

• Háskaleg hagkerfi: Tækifæri og takmarkanir umbóta (2007).
  Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag
• Imperfect Institutions: Possibilities and Limits of Reform,
  University of Michigan Press, 2005 (Chinese edition pending)
• Empirical Studies in Institutional Change, ed. with Lee Alston
  and Douglass North, Cambridge University Press, 1996 (Chinese, Japanese editions)
• Economic Behavior and Institutions, Cambridge University Press, 1990 (Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Rumanian, Korean, and Russian editions)

Essays

• Review of J. T. Landa (2015): Economic success of Chinese merchants in Southeast Asia: Identity, ethnic cooperation and conflict. Integrating the social sciences with evolutionary biology. Man and the Economy (2017), 4 (2), 5 pages.
  
• The naïve theory of property rights and its limits: Comment on Acheson, Private land and common oceans: Analysis of the development of property regimes. Current Anthropology  (2015), 56 (1): 4.
• Demand for wealth-reducing institutional change: the role of ideas and interests. In Norman Schofield and Gonzalo Caballero, editors. The Political Economy of Governance. Institutions, Political Performance, and Elections. Springer (2015): 3-20.
• El arte de la reforma institucional y los problemas del transplante institucional entre países. In Fernando Toboso and Gonzalo Caballero, eds. Democracia y políticas económicas. Elaboración, negociación y opciones. Editorial Síntesis, S.A. Madrid (2015): 409-424.
• Governing the commons: Future directions for the Ostrom Project. Journal of Bioeconomics  (2014) Vol. 16 (1): 45-51.

• Quick guide to New Institutional Economics. Journal of
  Comparative Economics  (2013) Vol. 41 (1): 1-5.

• Opportunities and Limits for the Evolution of Property Rights Institutions. In Daniel Cole & Elinor Ostrom eds. Property in Land and Other Resources. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Cambridge, Mass., 2012.

• The Evolution of Property Rights: The Strange Case of Iceland’s
  Health Records. International Journal of the Commons  (2011) Vol. 5(1).
• In the Woods: Darkness at Noon or Sunday in the Park with Lin?, Public Choice (2010), Vol. 143 (3-4): 275-82.

• Mapping Social Technologies in the Cultural Commons, Cornell Law Review, (2010) Vol 95 (4): 711-32.

• System Failure in Iceland and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. With Tryggvi Thor Herbertsson, version June 2009.
• Hardin’s Brilliant Tragedy and a Non-Sequitur Response, Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research, 1(3), 2009: 265-68.
• Knowledge and The Theory of Institutional Change, Journal of Institutional Economics, 5:2, 2009: 137-150.
• The Unbearable Lightness of A: Useful Knowledge and Economic Growth, In: Peer Zumbansen & Gralf-Peter Calliess, eds., Law Economics and Evolutionary Theory: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Edward Elgar, 2009.
• The New Economy (in Icelandic: “Nýja hagkerfid”) Fjármálatídindi (Central Bank of Iceland Economic Journal) 54, 2007: 33-45
• Property, in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd ed. 2007
• On the Survival of Imperfect Institutions, Revista de Análisis Economico, Vol. 21(2), 13-24, December 2006
• Evolution of Financial Institutions: Iceland’s Path from Repression to Eruption, with Tryggvi Thor Herbertsson. University of Iceland, Institute of Economics Working Paper Series, W05:10, 2005
• The Subtle Art of Major Institutional Reform. Introducing Property Rights in the Iceland Fisheries. In G. van Huylenbroeck, W. Verbeke, L. Lauwers, eds. Role of Institutions in Rural Policies and Agricultural Markets, 43-59. Elsevier, 2004.
• The Politics of Poverty. In Ram Mudambi, Pietro Navarra, and Guiseppi Sobrio, eds. Economic Welfare, International Business and Global Institutional Change. Edward Elgar, 2003.
• Open Access versus Common Property. In Terry L. Anderson and Fred S. McChesney, eds. Property Rights: Cooperation, Conflict, and the Law. Princeton University Press, 2002.
• Norms in Economics—With Special Reference to Economic Development. In Michael Hechter and Karl-Dieter Opp, eds. Social Norms. Russell Sage Foundation, 2001.
• Sources of Risk, Institutions for Survival, and a Game Against Nature in Pre-modern Iceland. Explorations in Economic History 35, 1998: 1-30.
• The Old Theory of Economic Policy and the New Institutionalism. World Development 25(8): 1187-1203, 1997.
• The Social Science of Wealth, in Steven G. Medema & Warren J. Samuels (eds.), Foundations of Research in Economics: How Do Economists Do Economics? Edward Elgar Publishers, 1996
• No Experiments, Monumental Disasters. Why it Took a Thousand Years to Develop A Specialized Fishing Industry in Iceland. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 30(1): 1-24, 1996.
• On the Economics of Economics. Kyklos, 201-210, 1995
• Analyzing Institutional Successes and Failures: A Millennium of Common Mountain Pastures in Iceland. International Review of Law and Economics 12, 1992, 423-437
• Repressed Financial Systems as Instruments of Taxation: Evidence from Iceland. Finnish Economic Papers 3(1):14-25, 1990
• Inflation Expectations and the Demand for Money in Iceland. Scandinavian Journal of Economics 84(1): 1-12, 1982.
• Determinants of Icelandic Foreign Relations. Cooperation and Conflict 10, 91-99, 1975