The author argues that the doctrine of state supremacy in Africa suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the collapse of export prices of African commodities in the late seventies, which undermined the ability of governments to support their expanded public sector. The author observes that...

In a model where cooperation is beneficial, but subject to cheating, and is supported by trigger strategy punishments in a repeated game, we explore the relationship between the nature of cooperation (size and composition of coalitions) and underlying inequality in the distribution of private...

In this discussion draft, linking research findings with concrete operational challenges, we review key issues in worldwide governance, and present recent empirical evidence. Focusing on defining and unbundling key governance components, such as rule of law, voice and accountability, corruption...

We discuss how the organization of society, the complexity of the economy, and its level of technological development influence the relationship between the institutions of democracy and economic growth; why the foundation of democracy and market institutions at the same time, in a society...

This paper develops a proxy measure of the inequality of influence on the basis of survey evidence from 2002 Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) conducted among 6,500 firms in 27 transition countries. We refer to the resulting inequality as crony bias in the political...

Based on the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) of firms in transition countries, which unbundles corruption to measure different types of corrupt transactions and provide detailed information on the characteristics and performance of firms, we find that: i)...

Icelandic university teachers, the Ministry of Finance and the University of Iceland have been conducting an interesting experiment by changing the form of remuneration of university teachers in a fundamental way. This paper accounts for the development of university teachers salaries the last...

By the end of 1999 HIV/AIDS was present in at least 200 countries and approximately 34.3 million people were living with the disease, 5.3 million of whom had been infected in that year alone (WHO 2000). Approximately 21.8 million persons had died from AIDS by 2000 and countries where life...

This paper proposes an evolutionary betting mechanism that refers to scientists' academic reputation. The mechanism provides incentives for theoretical and empirical researchers to work on joint projects, thereby producing more general findings and stylized facts that can be used in giving...