It seems that economists at Queen's have a lot to say about the origins of the Mafia. After Chris Colvin's review was picked up by Monday's FT, I learned that Arcangelo Dimico and co-authors have just finished a working paper on the origins of the Mafia. Their paper is entitled "Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons" - you can access it here.
According to Robert Shiller , speaking at Davos, Bitcoin is a perfect example of a bubble - story here . Shiller sees Bitcoin as a backwards step in the evolution of money. George Selgin , a free banker, takes an opposing view - click here . Although he doesn't believe that Bitcoin is money, he sees its development as a fascinating turn in the evolution of money. In particular, he lauds the fact that Bitcoin production is constrained and cannot be infinite. There is a short video below where Bitcoin explain how it works.