Research Focus
My areas of study include Austrian Economics, Public Choice Economics, Development Economics, and Economic Sociology. My broad research topics include environmental issues and Native American economic development.
My dissertation focuses on how institutions and culture affect entrepreneurship and economic outcomes on Native American lands. Native American reservations are often islands of poverty within the United States. The purpose of my dissertation is to better understand the effects of formal and informal institutions on Native American entrepreneurship and economic growth.
Other current research involves the connections between the Bloomington School of Political Economy and environmental policy. Elinor and Vincent Ostrom were founding scholars of the Bloomington School, and the core of their research program focused on using self-governance and polycentricity to solve social problems. I explore the Ostroms’ normative and analytical arguments regarding self-governance and how self-governing systems can resolve environmental problems without the need for top-down, centralized policies.
Publications
Books
The Reality of American Energy: The Hidden Costs of Electricity Policy. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2017, 199pp. (With R. M. Yonk and M. Hansen)
Journal Articles
Lofthouse, Jordan K. and Roberta Q. Herzberg. 2023. “The Continuing Case for a Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change.” Sustainability 15 (4): 3770.
Haeffele, Stefanie, Jordan K. Lofthouse, and Agustin Forzani. 2022. “The Perils of Regulating COVID–19: Insights from Kirznerian Entrepreneurship and Ostromian Polycentricity.” Economics of Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10101-022-00284-z..
Storr, Virgil Henry, Stefanie Haeffele, Jordan K. Lofthouse, and Anne Hobson. 2022. “Entrepreneurship during a pandemic.” European Journal of Law and Economics 54, 83–105.
Storr, Virgil Henry, Stefanie Haeffele, Laura E. Grube, and Jordan K. Lofthouse. 2021. “Crisis as a Source of Social Capital: Adaptation and Formation of Social Capital during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Cosmos + Taxis 9(5&6): 94-108.
Storr, Virgil Henry, Stefanie Haeffele, Jordan K. Lofthouse, and Laura E. Grube. 2021. “Essential or not? Knowledge problems and COVID-19 stay-at-home orders.” Southern Economic Journal 87(4): 1229-1249.
Lofthouse, Jordan K. and Virgil Henry Storr. 2021. “Institutions, the social capital structure, and multilevel marketing companies.” Journal of Institutional Economics 17(1): 53-70.
Lofthouse, Jordan K. 2019. “Liberty versus Bureaucracy on Native American Lands.” The Journal of Private Enterprise 34(1) Spring: 87-101.
Lofthouse, Jordan K. 2019. “Institutions and Economic Development on Native American Lands,” The Independent Review 24(2) Fall: 227-248.
Lofthouse, Jordan K. 2019. “Culture and Native American economic development,” Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy 9(1): 21-39.
Ph.D. Dissertation and Graduate Thesis
Lofthouse, Jordan K. 2020. “Political Economy of Native American Economic Development.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Economics, George Mason University. Major Professor: Christopher Coyne, PhD, Department of Economics. Committee Members: Peter Boettke, Jayme Lemke.
Lofthouse, Jordan K. 2016. “How Good Intentions Backfire: Failures and Negative Consequences of Federal Environmental Policies,” All Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 4746. http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/4746
Chapters in Edited Volumes
Lemke, Jayme and Jordan Lofthouse. 2022. “Libertarianism and the Bloomington School,” in The Routledge Companion to Libertarianism, edited by Matt Zwolinski and Benjamin Ferguson, 534-547. New York: Routledge.
Lemke, Jayme and Jordan K. Lofthouse. 2021. “Environmental policy from a self-governance perspective,” in Elinor Ostrom and the Bloomington School: Building a New Approach to Policy and the Social Sciences, edited by Jayme Lemke and Vlad Tarko, 105-122. Newcastle, UK: Agenda Publishing.
Lofthouse, Jordan K. and Megan E. Jenkins. 2021. “Cooperation or Conflict: Two approaches to conservation,” in Regulation and Economic Opportunity: Blueprints for Reform, edited by Adam Hoffer and Todd Nesbit, 259-288. Logan, Utah: The Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University.
Lofthouse, Jordan K. 2020. “Self-Governance, Polycentricity, and Environmental Policy,” in The Environmental Optimism of Elinor Ostrom, edited by Megan E. Jenkins, Randy T Simmons, and Camille H. Wardle, 31-60. Logan, UT: The Center for Growth and Opportunity.
Policy Reports and Working Papers
Native American Healthcare, Bureaucracy, and Poverty: Institutional Problems and Solutions. Mercatus Center at George Mason University. February 2022. (With Kelcie McKinley).
Using Public Choice Economics to Understand Public Debt. Foundation for Teaching Economics curriculum on Public Budgets, Deficits and Debt. July 2020. (With Jayme Lemke).
Executive Discretion and the Antiquities Act. The Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University. May 2019. (With Megan E. Hansen)
A Bird in the Hand: State-Driven Success in Sage-Grouse Conservation. Strata Policy. August 2017. (With Camille Harmer).
Improving the Endangered Species Act: Recommendations for More Effective Conservation. Strata Policy. August 2017. (With Camille Harmer).
Manufacturing Yellowstone: Political Management of an American Icon. Institute of Political Economy. August 2016. (With Randy Simmons and Ryan Yonk).
Publications Highlights
The Continuing Case for a Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change
Lofthouse, Jordan K. and Roberta Q. Herzberg. 2023. “The Continuing Case for a Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change.” Sustainability 15 (4): 3770.
Elinor Ostrom argued that effectively coping with manmade climate change requires a polycentric approach. Although we agree with Ostrom’s assessment, her arguments regarding the advantages of polycentricity could be taken further.
In this paper, we supplement Ostrom’s work by fleshing out the reasons of how and why a polycentric approach is more conducive to coping with climate change than national governments that attempt to centrally direct climate change policies.
We argue that there are at least six advantages that polycentric systems have for coping with climate change: competition among decision makers, cooperation among decision makers, perceptions of legitimacy that lead to coproduction, mutual learning through experimentation, institutional resilience/robustness, and emergent outcomes that are socially desirable but not centrally planned.
The combination of these six factors gives polycentric governance systems distinct advantages over more top-down ones, especially in terms of epistemics and incentive compatibility. Scholars and policymakers who are concerned about the implications of climate change should appreciate the many diverse and nuanced advantages of a polycentric approach for coping with climate change.
Institutions and Economic Development on Native American Lands
Lofthouse, Jordan K. 2019. “Institutions and Economic Development on Native American Lands,” The Independent Review 24(2) Fall: 227-248.
Native American lands are often rich in natural resources yet bastions of poverty. This paradox results largely from three main obstacles that impede entrepreneurship, the market process, and economic development: the federal land trust, a dual federal-tribal bureaucracy, and legal and political uncertainty.
Liberty versus Bureaucracy on Native American Lands
Lofthouse, Jordan K. 2019. "Liberty versus Bureaucracy on Native American Lands," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 34(Spring 20), pages 87-101.
Over the course of American history, a pervasive administrative state has emerged on Native American reservations as the result of unique institutions that govern those lands. The federal trust responsibility and an elaborate web of federal, state, and tribal policies affect the liberties and economic well-being of Native Americans. These unique institutions impose high costs on individual Native Americans when they try to engage in most economic enterprises. This paper explores the complex institutional structure of Native American governance that increases poverty, limits entrepreneurship, and restricts individual liberty on a fundamental level. The pervasiveness of bureaucratic control has also spurred negative forms of political entrepreneurship, eroded the rule of law, and hampered markets from working efficiently.
Institutions, the Social Capital Structure, and Multilevel Marketing Companies
Lofthouse, Jordan K. and Virgil Henry Storr. 2021. “Institutions, the social capital structure, and multilevel marketing companies.” Journal of Institutional Economics 17 (1): 53–70.
In multilevel marketing companies (MLMs), member-distributors earn income from selling products and recruiting new members. Successful MLMs require a social capital structure where members can access and mobilize both strong and weak social ties.
Utah has a disproportionate share of MLM companies located in the state and a disproportionate number of MLM participants. We argue that Utah's dominant religious institutions have led to the emergence of a social capital structure, making MLMs particularly viable. Utah is the most religiously homogeneous state; roughly half its population identifies as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
The LDS Church's institutions foster a social capital structure where (almost all) members have access to and can leverage social capital in all its forms. LDS institutions encourage members to make meaningful social connections characterized by trust and reciprocity with other church members in local neighborhoods and across the world.