We offer a rationale for the decision to extend the franchise to women within a politico-economic model where men are richer than women, women display a higher preference for public goods, and women’s disenfranchisement carries a societal cost. We first derive the tax rate chosen by the male...

In this paper, using industry sector stock returns as proxies of firm asset values, we obtain bank capital requirements (through the cycle). This is achieved by Montecarlo simulation of a bank loan portfolio loss density. We depart from the Basel 2 analytical formula developed by Gordy (2003)...

In this paper we study the evolution of citizenship laws around the world. Our analysis is based on a dataset we compiled to document such evolution in 162 countries in the 1948-2001 period. Our econometric results can be summarized as follows. The legal tradition, as represented by the...

This paper proposes a simple political economic model of public opinion support for the EU, drawing on the recent economic literature on integration processes. The basic element is the existence of a trade-off between the benefits of centralisation and the costs of harmonising policies in the...