This paper uses the natural experiment of a macro-financial crisis and radical liberalization in Bulgaria to explore the impact of labor reallocation and competitive pressure on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth in the manufacturing sector. Our results indicate that labor reallocated from...

This study adapts a relatively novel model of off-farm labor supply to the changing conditions of Bulgaria during the 1990s. The model’s parameters are estimated separately for each of the three different waves of the Bulgarian Integrated Household Survey, each reflecting remarkably different...

Affirmative action has been at the heart of public policies towards the socially disadvantaged in India. Compensatory discrimination policies which have been adopted for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) since independence were recommended for Other Backward Classes (OBC) by...

We examine the determinants of a current migrant's location choice emphasizing the relative importance and interaction of migrant stocks and flows. We show that both stocks and flow have significant impacts on the migrant’s decision of where to locate. The significance and size of the effects...

Understanding the factors that influence arrears is crucial if policy makers wish to alleviate the problems caused by debt. But conventional estimates of repayment behaviour impose implausible assumptions about lender behaviour. However, an upper and lower bound for the effect of the...

Might criminals in weak states benefit from better governance? We test the relationship between Somali piracy and local business conditions as well as (naval) law enforcement. Anarchy on land is not helpful to pirates, but corruptible governance is. Increasingly effective naval measures in the...

We study the relationship between ethnic diversity and economic performance and, in particular, focus on economic growth under democracy and dictatorship. We build a theory which emphasizes the public spending channel, and show that the relationship between public spending and ethnic diversity...

This paper proposes a model in which identical sellers of a homogenous product compete in both prices and price frames (i.e., ways to present price information). Frame choices affect the comparability of price offers, and may cause consumer confusion and lower price sensitivity. In equilibrium,...

Reforms often occur in waves, seemingly cascading from country to country. We argue that such reform waves can be driven by informational spillovers: uncertainty about the outcome of reform is reduced by learning from the experience of similar countries. We motivate this hypothesis with a simple...

This paper considers the use of loyalty inducing discounts in vertical supply chains. An upstream manufacturer and a competitive fringe sell differentiated products to a retailer who has private information about the level of stochastic demand. We provide a comparison of market outcomes when the...