This paper reconstructs the essential traits of Garegnani's thought on the theory of distribution. In particular, it reconstructs the central point of his work (which saw him involved in debates with economists such as Blaug, Bliss, Hahn, Hollander, Joan Robinson and Samuelson) – namely,...

This paper begins by chronicling the stunning inequality (economic and other) that characterizes the U.S. economy and U.S. cities. The development of cities in the United States in recent decades is linked quite essentially to the dynamics and contradictions of U.S. capitalism, including a...

During Britain's industrialization, Parliament operated a forum where rights to land and resources could be reorganized. This venue enabled landholders and communities to exploit economic opportunities that could not be accommodated by the inflexible rights regime inherited from the past. In...

Economics has firms maximizing value and people maximizing utility, but firms are run by people. Agency theory concerns the mitigation of this internal contradiction in capitalism. Firms need charters, regulations and laws to restrain those entrusted with their governance, just as economies need...

This paper summarizes and highlights different methodological approaches to behavioural economics in the context of the conventional economic wisdom and the implications of these different methodological approaches for financial literacy, related institutional change, and public policy....

This paper presents an analysis of the 2007-2010 Global Financial Crisis which started with the sub-prime crisis in the U.S. and became global very fast. It argues that the financial system in the United States is a complex interlocking structure of markets, institutions and regulators. The...

We introduce reported job satisfaction as a measure of economic performance and find it positively correlated with GDP per capita and the labor force participation rate in a sample of OECD countries and negatively correlated with unemployment. Moreover, we find that many measures of corporatism,...

We study the efficiency of internal capital markets at state-controlled and privately owned business groups in China. Using highly granular data on within-group capital flows, we document stark differences: while private groups allocate more capital to units with better investment opportunities,...

This study examines how the economic effects of elections in rural China depend on voter heterogeneity, for which we proxy with religious fractionalization. We first document religious composition and the introduction of village-level elections for a nearly nationally representative sample of...

This paper develops the building blocks for a legal theory of finance. LTF holds that financial markets are legally constructed and as such occupy an essentially hybrid place between state and market, public and private. At the same time, financial markets exhibit dynamics that frequently put...