Violations of social norms can be costly to society and they are, in the case of large crimes, followed by prosecution. Minor misbehaviors — small crimes — do not usually result in legal proceedings. Although the economic consequences of a single small crime can be low, such crimes generate...

Making the length of a prison sentence conditional on an individual’s offense history is shown to be a powerful way of preventing crime. Under a law adopted in the Netherlands in 2001, prolific offenders could be sentenced to a prison term that was some ten times longer than usual. We exploit...

This paper develops extensive new data on the legal independence of new central banks in 26 former socialist economies (FSE).This data is constructed using the codification system for measuring legal independence developed in Cukierman, Webb and Neyapti (1992) and in chapter 19 of Cukierman...

Legal institutions are critical for the development of market-based economies. This paper defines legal institutions and discusses different indicators to measure their quality and efficiency. It surveys a large historical and empirical literature showing the importance of legal institutions in...

This paper showcases the possibility of creating an adaptive auditing system. Adaptation in an audit environment need human intervention at some point. Based on a case study this paper focuses on automation of adaptation process. It is divided into solution design and validation parts. The...

Current cloud-based service offerings are often provided as one-size-fits-all solution and give little or no room for customization. This limits the ability for application developers to pick and choose offerings from multiple software, platform and infrastructure service providers and configure...

We investigate the determinants of the support for cannabis legalizationfinding a causal effect of personal experience with cannabis use. Current and past cannabis users are more in favor of legalization. We relate this to self-interest and inside information about potential dangers of cannabis...

Abstract Constitutions are commonly described as national products shaped by domestic politics. This paper develops and empirically tests a different hypothesis, which is that constitutions are also shaped by transnational influence, or “diffusion”. Constitutional rights can diffuse through...