There is an intensive dispute in political economics about the impact of institutions on income redistribution. While the main focus is on comparison between different forms of representative democracy, the influence of direct democracy on redistribution has attracted much less attention....

This paper studies the design of law-making and law enforcement institutions based on the premise that law is inherently incomplete. Under incomplete law, law enforcement by courts may suffer from deterrence failure, defined as the socialwelfare loss that results from the regime's inability to...

We propose a model in which assets with identical cash flows can trade at different prices. Agents enter into an infinite-horizon, steady-state market to establish long or short positions. Both the spot and the asset-lending market operate through search. Short-sellers can endogenously...

We develop a search-based model of asset trading, in which investors of different horizons can invest in two identical assets. The asset markets are partially segmented: buyers can search for only one asset, but can decide which one. We show that there exists a "clientele" equilibrium where one...

Previous studies of smoking risk beliefs have focused almost exclusively on risks to the smoker. Using an original set of survey data from Spain, we examine the public’s perceived risks from exposures to environmental tobacco smoke. The risk categories considered included lung cancer, heart...

We argue on theoretical grounds that obligatory compliance with stricter financial reporting rules (e.g. the US Sabanes-Oxley Act) may entail important unintended consequences. Paradoxically, the amount of misreporting may increase because corporate boards spend more valuable resources...

Recent work in psychology and economics has investigated ways in which individuals experience their lives. This literature includes influences on individuals’ momentary happiness. We contribute to this literature using a new data source, Mappiness (www.mappiness.org.uk), which permits...

We explore the effects of management innovations on worker well-being using private sector linked employer-employee data for Britain. We find management innovations are associated with lower worker well-being and lower job satisfaction, an effect which becomes more pronounced when we account for...

We investigate the effect of union membership on job satisfaction. Whilst it is common to study the effects of union status on satisfaction treating individual membership as given, in this paper, we account for the endogenous selection induced by the sorting of workers into unionised jobs. Using...

This paper brings new evidence on the relationship between employees' well being, sickness absence and four dimensions of workplace performance i.e. productivity, efficiency, quality of service and profitability. It uses a new panel dataset with monthly observations over two years for 48 local...