This review paper articulates the relationship between prediction market data and event studies, with a special focus on applications in political economy. Event studies have been used to address a variety of political economy questions – from the economic effects of party control of...

This paper uses a quasi-experimental framework provided by recent changes in Russian corporate law to study the effect of investor protection on the value of shares. The legal change analyzed involves the empowerment of preferred (non-voting) shareholders to veto unfavorable changes in their...

The role of government shareholding in corporate performance is central to an understanding of China’s newly privatized large firms. In this paper, we analyze shareholders as agents that can both harm and benefit companies. We examine the ownership structure of 826 listed corporations and find...

This paper estimates the effects of Say-on-Pay (SoP); a policy that increases shareholder "voice" by providing shareholders with a regular vote on executive pay. We apply a regression discontinuity design to the votes on shareholder-sponsored SoP proposals. Adopting SoP leads to large increases...

In this paper we present and test a theory of how political corruption, found in many transition and emerging market economies, affects corporate governance and productive efficiency of firms. Our model predicts that underdeveloped democratic institutions that do not punish political corruption...

This paper studies the turnover of board of directors members in a sample of 72 companies listed on the Milan Stock Exchange during the period 1988-1996. We investigate whether board members change more frequently when company performance is poor, as the literature suggests, and whether and how...

The paper studies whether and how CEO turnover in Ukrainian firms is related to their performance. Based on a novel dataset covering Ukrainian joint stock companies in 2002-2006, the paper finds statistically significant negative association between the past performance of firms measured by...

Ever since the very beginning of the Journal of Economics and Statistics, population economics has featured prominently in the Journal. Fertility naturally plays an important role in population economics. Its size has decreased significantly from the 1900s. Long time-series regarding fertility...

This study integrates findings from neurobiology and psychology on early childhood development and self-regulation to assess returns to education. Our framework for evaluating the distribution of age-specific returns to investments in cognitive and noncognitive skills is a lifecycle simulation...

In this paper we investigate the effect of local banking development on firms’ innovative activities, using a rich data set on innovation for a large number of Italian firms over the 1990’s. There is evidence that banking development affects the probability of process innovation,...