Institutional constraints to counter potential abuses in the use of political power have been viewed as essential to well functioning political institutions and good public policy outcomes in the Western World since the time of ancient Greece. A sophisticated intellectual tradition emerged to...

We propose a framework to explain why some societies may end up with different constitutional solutions to the problem of maintaining order in the face of self-interested behavior. Though the salient intellectual tradition since Hobbes has focused on how institutional design is used to eradicate...

One frequently overlooked aspect of the U.S.-style electoral college system is that it discourages election fraud. In a presidential election based on the popular vote, competing political parties are motivated to manipulate votes in areas where they hold the most significant influence, such as...

We conduct parallel surveys of legislators and citizens in three countries to study their tolerance for corruption. In Italy, Colombia, and Pakistan legislators and citizens respond similarly to hypothetical scenarios involving trade-offs between, for example, probity and efficiency: both...

This article provides evidence from the Congo that social relationships with state officials can decrease one social cost of corruption, in the context of public transport. We first document that police stops can lead to long bribe negotiations. In response, some drivers and officers have built...

In organizations, teams are ubiquitous. "Weakest Link" and "Best Shot" are incentive schemes that tie a group member's compensation to the output of their group's least and most productive member, respectively. In this paper, we test the impact of these incentive schemes by conducting two pilot...

Investments in the US Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine and Innovation (STEMI) enterprise come from many different sectors and their combined effect crucially enhances the nation's competitiveness. Philanthropy is an under-appreciated component of this ecosystem, providing $21.5 billion...

The paper examines whether, among inpatient psychiatric admissions in California, for-profit (FP) hospitals engage in cream skimming, i.e., choosing patients for some characteristic(s) other than their need for care, which enhances the profitability of the provider. We propose a novel approach...

Licensed workers could be shielded from unemployment during recession since occupational licensing laws are asymmetric--making unlicensed workers an illegal substitute for licensed workers but not the reverse. We test our hypothesis using a difference-in-differences event study research design...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated federal charitable giving incentives for roughly 20 percent of US income-tax payers. We study the impact of this on giving. Basic theory and our empirical results suggest heterogeneous effects for taxpayers with different amounts of itemizable expenses....