The paper investigates the influence of outside options on the predatory behavior of autocrats. An outside option is referred to as the opportunity of an incumbent ruler to continue his career outside his current territory of control. The paper uses data on the effectiveness of tax collection...

The accuracy of a tax return is usually interpreted as an outcome of the tax evasion decision by an individual. However, in non-democratic regimes with predatory blackmail tax systems it is possible that large sums voluntarily reported by influential politicians or businessmen may be used as...

In the past two decades, controversial evidence has been produced supporting the case for local protectionism in China. This paper overviews the most important contributions and presents a new approach which applies spatial econometrics on prefectural-level data. The main advantage of this...