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This study combines historical and quantitative methods to determine the market response to a major nineteenth century American urban architectural form-the speculatively built row house. The paper estimates a hedonic price index which decomposes the original purchase price of the row house into a set of prices for the characteristics of the house, including detailed architectural features. In turn, the estimated prices for the architectural features reveal the market's response to the aesthetic design. With more than 3,500 row houses, its tree-lined streets, and scattered parks, Boston's South End is the largest Victorian residential district remaining in the United States. The homogeneity of the brick bowfront row house form, coupled with the variety of architectural features, provides an unusual opportunity to test the effect of architecture on market values. We find that variables for lot size, house size, and location within the neighborhood explain 74 percent of the price of a row house. Architectural style and features account for an additional 14 percent of the price of the house and are more highly valued when they differentiate a row house from its neighbors. These are significant results, for they provide systematic statistical evidence that architectural design matters in the marketplace. "But tell me: When you say; 'The value of a building,' do you really lay more stress on the subjective value than the dollar value?" "On both. For human nature determines that subjective value, sooner or later, becomes money value; and the lack of it, sooner or later, money loss. The subjective value is far higher, by far the more permanent; but money value is inseparable from the affairs of life; to ignore it would be moonshine."

In a recently reprinted essay, Gordon Tullock (1980: 671-678) develops the thesis that the acquisition by producers of government sanctioned monopoly privileges rarely leads to higher long run profitability. The gains are short-lived because the monopoly rents often are dissipated. 'The successors to the original beneficiaries will not normally make exceptional profits, but, unfortunately, they usually will be injured by cancellation of the original gift' (p. 671). Tullock refers to this as 'the transitional gains trap.' Tullock's hypothesisBy way of illustration, Tullock cites, among others, the example of Sunday closing laws. His hypothesis is straightforward. The imposition of a Sunday closing law reduces the capacity of (say) grocery stores to serve a given number of customers with the same degree of convenience, e.g., check out lines are longer, shelves can be surveyed and stocked less frequently. More importantly, closing a store one day a week reduces operating costs by more than it reduces sales revenue. Certain costs, such as for labor and energy, decline while daily sales volume increases as approximately the same number of customers must do their food shopping during six, rather than seven, days a week. Further, since all stores are governed by the same law, no single store need fear losing business to competitors because it is closed on Sunday. Thus profit margins increase -the gains. However, positive economic profits attract entry. New stores will be built as grocers compete for customers by attempting to restore the original level of shopping convenience. As Tullock concludes, 'Eventually, then, we will have a situation in which there are more stores than there were before and the return on all stores is, once again, normal' (p. 674) -the trap. The purpose of this note is to provide a test of Tullock's hypothesis that, ceteris

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We investigate where consensus exists in the field of Economics and the Law by analyzing responses to a questionnaire mailed to members of the American Law and Economics Association. These specialists are impressed by the efficiency of the common law, while few believe that the jury system is efficient. Fifty-nine percent conclude that there are currently too many attorneys in the U.S. Forty-one percent believe that there are about the right number—none think that there are too few. Among the other issues in the survey are precedent, contract law, litigation abuse, negligence, nuisance, punitive damages, no-fault auto insurance, product liability, contingency fees, losers paying for civil litigation, compensation for regulatory takings, privacy rights, and the economics of crime and punishment.