Pablo Paniagua

King's College London | KCL · Department of Political Economy

This paper contributes to the literature on externalities and their classification by reconciling insights from transaction costs theory with James Buchanan’s and Elinor Ostrom’s analyses of property rights and institutional diversity. We critique the dominant Pigouvian analysis, which assumes only two forms of institutions—namely, governments and...

Despite significant advances in understanding the biophysical and institutional causes of overfishing, we have yet to make progress in addressing the depletion of our global fisheries stock. Investigations of potential solutions tend to be too broad (mischaracterizing global fisheries as a singular commons problem to be addressed at the supranation...

This entry introduces the reader to the concept of externalities as well as some recent advances concerning how we can conceptualize and taxonomize externalities considering recent human challenges. The main motivation is threefold: first, to guide readers into the nature and conceptualization of externalities from a political economy perspective;...

Polycentric Governance and the Good Society: A Normative and Philosophical Investigation offers an examination of the idea of polycentric governance as one of the pillars of a flourishing human society. Rather than following the conventional path of suppressing complexity and diversity for the sake of reaching agreement on justice and political sta...

Este ensayo de economía política es más que un trillado análisis del estallido social. Es un trabajo que explora de forma crítica el modelo de desarrollo chileno, analizando la evolución de su modernidad durante los últimos treinta años, evidenciando sus ambigüedades, grietas sociales, desafíos públicos y agotamiento económico que terminaron finalm...

A cinco años del estallido social del 18-O, la evidencia económica desafía las narrativas predominantes sobre sus causas. La tesis de la desigualdad como motor principal del malestar se desmorona ante los datos: Chile ha experimentado una disminución constante en sus índices de desigualdad desde 1990. El verdadero catalizador parece ser una profund...

The Latin American region has suffered an economic slowdown since the end of the commodities boom. Within this context, Chile was the poster child of economic growth and development up until 2014. Since then, Chile has also been trapped in a decade of slow economic growth. Chile's sudden slowdown and recent growth path divergence have posed a puzzl...

This paper introduces the special issue on complex externalities and public choice. The collection of essays extends analytical bridges between public choice, property rights economics, and new institutional economics. The essays question many of our prevailing assumptions behind the standard conceptualization of externalities. They also offer prag...

The consequences of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, are evident: death, coordination problems, destruction of infrastructure, and displacement of population. However, according to empirical research, the impact of a natural disaster on economic activity is mixed. Natural disasters could have significant economic effects, especially in devel...

Este ensayo explora las consecuencias del pensamiento político y filosófico de Karl Marx. A través de una exégesis del pensamiento de Marx, se señala que este plantea una visión coherente del proceso de emancipación de la humanidad con el objetivo de trascender los procesos económicos relacionados al mercado y de la propiedad privada. Posteriorment...

Este articulo busca hacer una reflexión critica y una exégesis en torno al concepto de neoliberalismo en Chile. Para esto, este ensayo comienza con la crítica de Mario Góngora hacia los Chicago Boys y su concepto de lo político y la tecnocracia. Al detenernos en el pensamiento político de los Chicago Boys, analizaremos críticamente su visión pragmá...

This article contributes to the literature on complexity and macroeconomic models by exploring the analytical relationship and tensions between complex phenomena and macroeconomics. By evaluating the properties of organised complexity, this article suggests alternative strategies for analysing the macroeconomy. Drawing on F. A. Hayek's notion of or...

This essay analyzes the evolution of economic freedom in Chile for the period 1970-2018. In light of the evidence, three periods of marked differences are presented for Chile: the "great expansion of economic freedom" (1980-1995), the "consolidation of economic freedom" (1995-2009) and the "stagnation and decline of economic freedom" (2010-2018). T...

Resumen Este ensayo analiza las tres premisas de la teoría de la elección pública a través del pensamiento del Premio Nobel James Buchanan. Primero, se exploran los tres principios orientadores de la elección pública, mediante el trabajo contractualista de Buchanan: el individualismo metodológico, la simetría del comportamiento y la política como p...

Despite significant advances in our understanding of the biophysical and institutional causes of overfishing, we have made little progress in addressing the depletion of our global fisheries stock. Investigations of potential solutions tend to be either too broad (mischaracterizing global fisheries as a singular commons problem to be addressed at t...

The Latin American region has suffered an economic slowdown since the end of the commodities boom. This has affected the capacity of the region to tackle inequality and pending social ills. Within this context, Chile was the poster child of economic growth and development up until 2014. Since then, Chile has also been trapped in a decade of slow ec...

Resumen: En este ensayo se examina el debate económico acerca de las empresas privadas (POEs por sus siglas en inglés) y las empresas públicas (SOEs por sus siglas en inglés). A nivel internacional han resurgido ideas respecto al "Estado empresario" y a nivel nacional han surgido nuevas voces que promueven un rol más activo del Estado dentro de la...

Este artículo reflexiona acerca de la actual crisis de la democracia liberal bajo el pensamiento político del premio Nobel de Economía, Elinor Ostrom. Distintas interpretaciones desde la ciencia política se han dado con respecto a los posibles orígenes de la actual crisis. No obstante, no ha habido suficientes luces conceptuales desde las ciencias...

This article contributes to the literature on central banks' institutional rationale and evolution by analyzing the early development of the Bank of England as a case study. The history of the Bank is scrutinized under the framework of entangled political economy, revealing its origins in a process of bank and political bargains. The account clarif...

Resumen: El presente ensayo analiza la evolución histórica de la libertad económica en Chile para el período 1970-2018. A la luz de la evidencia, se presentan tres períodos de marcadas diferencias para Chile: la "gran expansión de las libertades económicas" (1980-1995), la "consolidación de las libertades económicas" (1995-2009) y el "estancamiento...

In response to Paniagua and Rayamajhee's (2021) proposal for a polycentric approach for pandemic gov-ernance, Frolov (2022) notes that their paper focuses on preventive measures, and neglects the deeper, cognitive dimension of coproduction. In this essay, we extend the notion of coproduction to analyze the cognitive institutions that underlie socia...

Social scientists often assume that complex externalities, such as pandemics, should be governed through a Pigouvian approach that deems top-down coercion and restrictions sufficient to govern externalities. Yet, the production of public health requires citizens to actively adopt precautionary and cooperative measures. Moreover, as Elinor Ostrom’s...

Political economists assume that global externalities, such as pandemics and climate change, require global or multinational solutions. Yet, many aspects of these externalities can be addressed at the micro-level. As Elinor Ostrom pointed out, what scholars perceive as global externalities are in fact nested externalities that are organized in mult...

Containing the spread of a virus during a pandemic requires citizens to self-discipline and adopt precautionary measures. This paper focuses on one such measure: social distancing. Governments can force citizens to comply with social distancing by imposing mandates and increasing penalties. However, constitutional restraints prevent governments in...

Introduction the the Special Issue I have guest edited on the Political Economy of Pandemics and Negative Externalities

Political economists often assume that global externalities, such as pandemics and climate change, require global or multi-national solutions. Yet, many aspects of these externalities can be more effectively addressed at a micro-level. As Elinor Ostrom (2012) argues, what scholars commonly perceive as global externalities are in fact nested externa...

This article contributes to the literature on the institutional evolution of central banks by analyzing the development of the Bank of England during its establishment. The article proposes a broad theory for the institutional evolution of early central banks by examining the progression of the Bank of England as a case study. The evolution of the...

Containing the spread of virus during a pandemic requires citizens to actively self-discipline and adopt precautionary measures. This paper focuses on one such measure: namely, social distancing. Governments can force citizen compliance toward social distancing by imposing mandates and exponentially increasing the costs of violations. However, cons...

This paper builds on the Ostroms' oeuvre to suggest that the binary Samuelsonian taxonomy of goods – or the ‘sterile dichotomy’, as Elinor Ostrom calls it – cannot serve as a reliable guide for public policy. Using the Ostroms' insights on co-production, institutional matching, and polycentricity, we argue that the ‘inherent’ nature of goods and th...

I contribute to the literature on banking stability, by arguing that a polycentric system can better deal with the provision of crucial banking services—such as safeguarding from bank runs and providing emergency liquidity—than a monocentric system. Goodhart’s The Evolution of Central Banks, established that central banks are institutionally necess...

This paper deals with money’s epistemic relevance in society. Money presents theoretical difficulties for neoclassical economics, which treats it as a cost-reducing tool, leading to a socially neutral, aseptic view on money. Drawing from complexity and social theory I provide a socio-epistemic rationalization for money’s irreplaceable role. Buildin...

Based on Goodhart’s (1988) The Evolution of Central Banks, I examine both the theoretical arguments and the historical evidence that could sustain the case for the natural emergence of central banks. I criticize Goodhart’s theoretical claim that central banks evolve naturally, by showing that they are far from being uniquely capable of supplying es...

The financial crisis brought about a higher degree of monetary policy unpredictability. To anchor expectations and promote nominal stability, there is a need for predictable monetary rules or stable constitutions. This paper’s purpose is to define the general expectational properties that monetary constitutions should possess to work as coordinatio...

This paper uses robust political economy to assess whether free banking or central banking can better use its institutional structures to minimize macroeconomic disequilibrium. Robust frameworks leverage their incentives, reward structures, and epistemic resources to achieve monetary policy objectives. We relax the assumptions of political pressure...

The scope of this essay seeks to understand how we can achieve a more stable and dynamically self-correcting monetary arrangement which will minimize the likelihood of having severe monetary disruptions on the economic system. We wish to find systems that minimize systemic macroeconomic disequilibrium, which arises whenever money severely distorts...