This paper develops a model of voluntary migration into degrading work. The essence of the model is a tension between two “bads:” that which arises from being relatively deprived at home, and that which arises from engaging in humiliating work away from home. Balancing between these two...

Should tax reforms be guided by rules of thumb suggested by the IMF, or directions or reform based on analytical approaches, such as optimal tax theory? In many cases, the applications of the directions of reform—which suggest a differentiation of the structure given distributional, incentive...

In this paper I delineate novel policy repercussions suggested by my research on “The New Economics of the Brain Drain.” In section 1, I provide a succinct account of the model that inspires the derivation of several new policy implications. In sections 2 through 5, I present the policy...

Minority rights play a significant role in development policy, especially within inhomogeneous societies. The justification of minority rights is linked to the justification of human rights. The study develops elements of a new typology of minorities against the background of the question of...

This paper shows how the Dutch Disease has affected the Russian economy since the start of the transition in the early 1990s. Four symptoms have been detected, namely: 1) a real exchange rate appreciation, 2) a temporary improved economic situation, 3) an output decline in the...

Many developing market economies were strongly distorted during the 1960s and 1970s by fashionable policies to force industrialisation and they experienced growth collapses when exposed to the price shocks of the 1970s. In this context, the centrally planned economies were even more highly...

The naturalization of asylum seekers is modeled as an economic problem. In choosing their level of investment in host-country-specific human capital, asylum seekers take into consideration the probability of their being naturalized. The government of the host country chooses the probability of...

This paper calls attention to the instrumental role of democracy and press freedom in combating corruption. As opposed to an autocracy with no or limited press freedom, a free press in a democracy can inform voters about the corruption of political representatives, and voters in turn can punish...

How can an escalation of tensions between the major ethno-religious groups be avoided in a democratizing Iraq? The first section explains why and under which conditions democratization may stir up, rather than palliate ethnic conflicts: when networks of civil society organizations have not yet...

The present paper investigates how ethnic violence and civil war in Sri Lanka have affected local property rights institutions . I use local case studies to analyze the institutional relations and alliances between civilians and combatants in the emergent society of violence that shapes local...