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This paper discusses and proposes random selection as a component in decision-making in society. Random procedures have played a significant role in history, especially in classical Greece and the medieval city-states of Italy. We examine the important positive features of decisions by random mechanisms. Random processes allow representativeness with respect to individuals and groups. They significantly reduce opportunities to influence political decisions by means of bribery and corruption and decrease the large expenses associated with today's democratic election campaigns. Random mechanisms can be applied fruitfully to a wide range of fields, including politics, the judiciary, the economy, science and the cultural sector. However, it is important that random selection processes are embedded in appropriately designed institutions.

This paper discusses and proposes random selection as a component in decision-making in society. Random procedures have played a significant role in history, especially in classical Greece and the medieval city-states of Italy. We examine the important positive features of decisions by random Mechanisms. Random processes allow representativeness with respect to individuals and groups. They significantly reduce opportunities to influence political decisions by means of bribery and corruption and decrease the large expenses associated with today's democratic election campaigns. Random mechanisms can be applied fruitfully to a wide range of fields, including politics, the judiciary, the economy, science and the cultural sector. However, it is important that random selection processes are embedded in appropriately designed institutions.

The Political Economy and Public Choice approaches have promoted the study of interactions between the economy and the polity for over 60 years now. The present paper endeavours to provide a critical discussion of this literature and its achievements. In particular, it begins with the different approaches based on empirically tested or politometric models and it then proceeds to discuss different studies of the effects that particular rules of the game have on politico-economic outcomes. The third section of the paper will address studies that take institutions to be endogenous and aims to explain why particular institutions emerge. Finally, the question of whether Political Economy has been a success or a failure will be tackled. While the success in terms of the position it has gained in economic research and teaching is undeniable, a look at one of the most thriving recent areas of economics, happiness research, will reveal that some of its fundamental lessons are all too often disregarded.

The official intention of the UNESCO World Heritage List is to protect the global heritage. However, the imbalance of the distribution of Sites according to countries and continents is striking. Consequently, the World Heritage Committee launched the Global Strategy for a Balanced, Representative and Credible World Heritage List in 1994. To date, there have not been any empirical analyses conducted to study the impact of this strategy. This paper shows that the imbalance did not decrease and perhaps increased over time, thus reflecting the inability of the Global Strategy to achieve a more balanced distribution of Sites.

Museums have many different goals beyond efficiency such as social equity, financial revenue, attracting donors and gaining international, regional or local prestige. Various pricing schemes are being discussed with the aim of reaching these goals. The classical ones are entry prices and free entry. The museum club solution or exit donations allow for various additional goals. Each scheme has clear advantages and disadvantages. We propose an innovative pricing instrument: Exit prices, which are charged according to the time spent in a museum. This scheme has a number of notable advantages, in particular the better choice available to the visitors, which increases their satisfaction.

The UNESCO World Heritage List contains the 900 most treasured Sites of humanity's culture and landscapes. The World Heritage List is beneficial where heritage sites are undetected, disregarded by national decision-makers, not commercially exploitable, and where national financial resources, political control and technical knowledge for conservation are inadequate. Alternatives such as the market and reliance on national conservation list are more beneficial where the cultural and natural sites are already popular, markets work well, and where inclusion in the List does not raise the destruction potential by excessive tourism, and in times of war or by terrorists.