We show that the nature and extent of trade is significantly affected by the pricing policy that firms are allowed to employ. A switch from discriminatory to non-discriminatory pricing (e.g. strict anti-dumping laws) leads to a switch from two-way trade to one-way trade. It is far from true that...

This paper discusses the design of appropriate institutions for trade policy-making in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on US and EU experience it argues that legislatures should set the broad parameters, leaving commodity-specific detail to the executives. Sectoral Ministries, e.g. of...

In this paper we analyze the impact of government and private ownership of banks on firms’ probability to innovate. We estimate firms’ decision to innovate and their selection of a main lender for a sample of 9000 German manufacturing companies. Since these two decisions may be...

This paper proposes a simple scheme designed to elicit and reward intensity of preferences in referenda: voters faced with a number of binary proposals are given one regular vote for each proposal plus an additional number of bonus votes to cast as desired. Decisions are taken according to the...

The paper studies a simple voting system that has the potential to increase the power of minorities without sacrificing aggregate efficiency. Storable votes grant each voter a stock of votes to spend as desired over a series of binary decisions. By cumulating votes on issues that it deems most...

This paper studies how patent rights and price regulation affect how fast new drugs are launched in different countries, using newly constructed data on launches of 642 new drugs in 76 countries for the period 1983-2002, and information on the duration and content of patent and price control...