At their arrival in North America, travelers from the Old Continent were exposed to a radically different civilization. Among the many practices that captured their imagination was scalp-taking. During a battle, the Native American warrior would often stop after having killed or subdued the enemy and cut off his scalp. In this article, we develop an economic theory of this gruesome practice. We argue that scalp-taking constituted an institutional solution to the problem of monitoring warriors’ behavior in the battlefield under conditions of high information costs.

中文翻译：

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剥头皮

在他们抵达北美时，来自旧大陆的旅行者接触到了一个完全不同的文明。在许多激发他们想象力的做法中，包括剥头皮。在战斗中，美洲原住民战士通常会在杀死或制服敌人并切断头皮后停下来。在本文中，我们针对这种可怕的做法发展了一种经济理论。我们认为，剥头皮是在高信息成本条件下监控战士在战场上的行为问题的制度解决方案。