Using cross–country and Peruvian data, I show that victims of misfortune, particularly crime victims, are much more likely than non–victims to bribe public officials. Misfortune increases victims’ demand for public services, raising bribery indirectly, and also increases victims’...

What explains the varying responses by Thai governments to changes in the international economic environment over time. To answer this the paper emphasizes the link between the nature of the political structure/policymaking environment and the government’s reform capacity. Thailand’s...

This paper surveys alternative approaches to the emergence and evolution of institutions. The challenge is to develop frameworks capable of capturing both stability and change. We follow a “descaling” approach to show how founding assumptions about economics—namely, alternative assumptions...

The paper addresses the issue of rethinking the welfare state as a part of a broader national system of social protection (NSSP) and a mode of societal regulation. In order to overcome the theoretical limits of bottom-up comparative analysis of welfare states, one builds a structural model of...

This paper compiles a multidimensional poverty index for Germany. Drawing on the capability approach as conceptual framework, I apply the Alkire-Foster method using German panel data. I suggest new operationalizations for two dimensions: social participation and practical reason, the latter...

Is there any interrelationship between firm level FDI in the form of cross border Mergers & Acquisitions and capital markets growth and quality? We addressed this question using panel data of cross border M&A for nine emerging economies. Our study period goes from 1987 to 2006. We find that the...

Despite rapid economic growth and poverty reduction, inequality in Chile has remained high and remarkably constant over the last 20 years, prompting academic and public interest in the subject. Due to data limitations, however, research on inequality in Chile has concentrated on the national and...

Based on a principal-agent model, this paper investigates the organizational structure that made the El Salvador's primary school decentralization program (EDUCO program) successful. First, we employ the "augmented" reduced form educational production function by incorporating parents and...

What are the determinants of economic reform efforts? This paper tries to throw light on this question by examining recent reforms in Brazil, a country which followed a gradualist approach and was a late-starter among Latin American economies. We argue that these first generation reforms (trade...