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→How does the author rule out alternative hypotheses?
===How does the author rule out alternative hypotheses?===
* Based on the lack of historical evidence, the author says that a court-enforced legal system was not used to overcome the commitment/agency problem. The author also notes that asymmetric information problems would hinder the court's ability to enforce contracts. For example: An 11th Century court has no way of verifying whether a storm destroyed goods or if the goods were stolen. On the rare occasions in which the courts were indeed used, they were evidently expensive and time consuming. The author speculates that this would be prohibit their use. Jewish law also (according to the author) restricts the ability to sue agents. * The author also notes that a model based on "types" in which "bad types" carry their cheating around is not supported by historical evidence (pg 532, left).
===How might these tests be run if one had quantitative evidence? ===