The economic puzzle of Oskar Schindler: amenity potential and rational choice.

Shows how Schindler used the resources and opportunities afforded him as the owner-manager of a business to achieve his personal goal of saving Jews. This is an example of what the economist Harold Demsetz has termed "amenity potential", where control over a firm's resources allows one to pursue one's private purposes subject to legal and market constraints. Applying amenity potential to the economic puzzle of Schindler's choices reveals how and why he was able to make various choices which followed the letter of the law in Nazi society, while violating its spirit.