The monopolies behind the 'evil' problems: Institutional dispersion for equality, Eve Guterman.

In the new era of information, technological innovation is changing the nature of the economy and our incentives within it. Rare inputs no longer dominate the market, thereby questioning the most basic economic models of maximizing efficiency and value in the market. This research deals with four classic 'villains' of social welfare, considered insoluble under the conditions of market capitalism: (1)redistribution of wealth, (2) the principal-agent problem, (3) the institution of property rights, and (4) the provision of public goods. We reframe them as problems of concentrated monopoly regulation, now distorted due to the changing nature of the increasingly global economy. Our hypothesis is that Decentralized Ledger Technologies (DLTs) represent a new type of digital institution with the potential to offer new solutions to these problems, by increasing personal agency and resilience, realigning market incentives, and restoring genuine competition to the free market. This research utilizes four unique cases of digital institutions built on DLT that are designed to address the aforementioned 'villainous' problems.