We test under what circumstances boards discipline managers and whether such interventions improve performance. We exploit exogenous variation due to the staggered adoption of corporate governance laws in formerly Communist countries coupled with detailed ‘hard’ information about the...

We develop a dynamic discrete choice model of a self-interested and unchecked ruler making decisions regarding the exploitation of a resource-rich country. This dictator makes the recursive choice between either investing domestically to live off the productivity of the country while facing the...

The industrial organization of developing countries is characterized by the pervasive use of subcontracting arrangements among small, financially constrained firms. This paper asks whether vertical integration relaxes those financial constraints. It shows that vertical integration trades off the...

This research examines the economic origins of Islam and uncovers two empirical regularities. First, Muslim countries, virtual countries and ethnic groups, exhibit highly unequal regional agricultural endowments. Second, Muslim adherence is systematically larger along the pre-Islamic trade...

Extreme events are one of the main channels through which climate and socio- economic systems interact. It is likely that climate change will modify their probability distributions and their consequences. The long-term growth models used in climate change assessments, however, cannot capture the...

This report provides an overview of the causes and consequences of the Italian State-owned Enterprises (SOE) reform process. Particularly, it analyzes the symbiotic link between share issue privatization (SIP), i.e. privatization in public equity markets, and financial market development, and...

During the ‘90s most Latin American countries were submitted to neoliberal structural reform policies. Neoliberal policies imposed market supremacy, reduced the State’s role in the economy and deregulated the markets. This paper aims at describing how these policies affected the most...

I study the coexistence of formal and informal finance in underdeveloped credit markets. While weak institutions constrain formal banks, shallow pockets hamper informal lenders. In such economies, informal finance has two effects. By increasing the investment return it decreases borrowers’...

This paper presents an examination of the socially efficient formation of environmental R&D in Cournot duopoly in a setting where a regulator has no precommitment ability for an emission tax. The results reveal that if the environmental damage is slight, alternatively, given severe environmental...

Characterizing the future performance of energy technologies can improve the development of energy policies that have net benefits under a broad set of future conditions. In particular, decisions about public investments in research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) that promote...