We investigate, both theoretically and empirically, how the negative effects of government corruption on economic growth are magnified or reduced by capital account liberalization. Our model shows that highly corrupt countries impose higher tax rates than do less corrupt countries, thereby,...

This research demonstrates that international financial integration changes the way in which financial development affects inequality within a country. Specifically, both the cross-country analysis and the dynamic panel data analysis using data collected from more than 100 countries provide...

This paper demonstrates with a simple two-country general equilibrium model that the difference in the levels of financial development between countries determines the direction of capital movement and that for some parameter values, if financial markets are integrated internationally, countries...

There are two innovations in the paper as compared to the previous literature on democracy and growth. First, we consider not only the level of democracy, but also changes in this level in the 1970s-1990s as measured by increments of Freedom House political rights indices. Second, the...

There are two innovations as compared to the previous literature on democratization and growth. First, not only the level of democracy is taken into account, but also changes in this level in the 1970s-1990s as measured by the political rights indices of the Freedom House. Second, the...

We suggest a dynamic game theoretic model to explain why resource abundance may lead to instability of democracy. Stationary Markov perfect equilibria of this game with four players – Politician, Oligarch, Autocrat and Public (voters) – are analyzed. Choosing a rate of resource rent tax,...

There are two innovations in the paper as compared to the previous literature on democracy and growth. First, we consider not only the level of democracy, but also changes in this level in the 1970s-1990s as measured by increments of Freedom House political rights indices. Second, the...

We analyze data on sustainability of democratic regimes in resource rich countries and suggest a two-period model to explain why resource abundance may lead to instability of democracy in some countries, but does not create any difficulties for democratic system in other ones. Our central idea...

This paper investigates how financial globalization and financial development affect income inequality within a country. We demonstrate that when a country is financially closed to the world market, the Gini coefficient is monotonically decreasing with respect to the degree of financial...

In our previous papers (Polterovich V., Popov V., 2007; Polterovich V., Popov V., Tonis A., 2006) it was shown that democratization (increase in the political rights index of the Freedom house in 1970-2000) can negatively affect economic growth, if the quality of institutions at the beginning of the...