A general theory of voting, which explains under what conditions voting will be chosen as a means for allocating resources and how the constitution that governs the voting will be structured is presented. It is hypothesized that developers of voting organizations will structure their organizations in order to maximize the value of shares sold by minimizing the expected costs of wealth transfer and decision making in the voting organization. Implications regarding the allocation of votes and assessments within the organization, the domain of voting decisions, and the optimal voting rule are tested with data on the constitutional structure of condominium homeowner associations.

The supply curve of labor is now accepted as a matter of course by most economists. It has no doubt been perplexing to observe that the most commonly employed types of utility functions do not yield such curves under the usual textbook analysis of the problem.1 Particular preference maps have been found that generate backward bending curves;2 however, they are nonparametric, leading to difficulties of estimation, and upon closer examination seem to imply counter-intuitive results. We will show that taking into account the wealth position of an individual on the one hand and survival consideration on the other greatly expands the variety of shapes that can be derived for the supply curve from some simple utility functions. The use of a specific simple utility function also implies some severe restrictions on the form the supply curve can take, rendering it testable. Empirical evidence is shown to support the conclusion that the supply curve is monotonic. We will also show that the notion that the aggregate supply curve of labor slopes down rests, in part, on an error of aggregation, and that the empirical evidence usually cited in support of the negative slope, when correctly interpreted, cannot be so construed.

JHE CLIOMETRIC revolution in ecoknomic history wedded neoclassical economics and quantitative methods in order to describe and explain the performance of economies in the past.' Economic history gained in rigor and scientific pretension, but at the expense of exploring a much more fundamental set of questions about the evolving structure of economies that underlies performance.2 Cliometricians have turned their backs on a long tradition stretching back from Joseph Schumpeter to Karl Marx to Adam Smith. These scholars regarded economic history as essential because it added a dimension to economics. Its purpose was to analyze the parameters held constant by the economist. If economics is a theory of choice subject to specified constraints, a task of economic history was to theorize about those evolving constraints. The failure of economic historians to provide their colleagues with a historical dimension to their perspective has reduced the effectiveness of economists in dealing with contemporary problems. Failure of economists to appreciate the transitory character of the assumed constraints and to understand the source and direction of these changing constraints is a fundamental handicap to further development of economic theory. The challenge to the economic historian which has equally compelling implications for the economic theorist is to explain the transformation of the structure of the American Economy in the past century.3 In the rest of this essay I shall explore this issue in order to specify some of the dimensions of the economic historian's task.