Using original survey data, we examine how insecurity affects welfare. Correcting for unobserved heterogeneity and possible endogeneity, we find an effect of insecurity on incomes, school enrolment, health status, and infant mortality. Results are robust to the inclusion of various shocks...

Measures of urban productivity are typically positively associated with city population. But is this relationship causal? We discuss the main sources of bias in the proper identification of agglomeration effects. We also assess a variety of solutions that have been proposed in the literature to...

This paper studies the role of strong versus weak ties in the rural-to-urban migration decision in China. We first develop a network model that puts forward the different roles of weak and strong ties in helping workers to migrate to the city. We then use a unique longitudinal data that allows...

Increasing penalty structures for repeat offenses are ubiquitous in penal codes, despite little empirical or theoretical support. Multi-period models of criminal enforcement based on the standard economic approach of Becker (1968) generally find that the optimal penalty structure is either flat...

We study the effects of patriotism on tax compliance. If individuals feel a (random) patriotic warm glow from honest tax compliance, this has implications for optimal auditing and tax compliance. A higher expected warm glow reduces the government's optimal audit probability and yields higher tax...

This paper studies the causal effect of educational attainment on conviction and incarceration using Sweden's compulsory schooling reform as an instrument for years of schooling and a 25 percent random sample from Sweden's Multigenerational Register matched with more than 30 years of...

An arbiter can decide a case on the basis of his priors, or the two parties to the conflict may present further evidence. The parties may misrepresent evidence in their favor at a cost. At equilibrium the two parties never testify together. When the evidence is much in favor of one party, this...

This paper investigates the effect of corruption on competition in government procurement auctions. Our assumption is that the bureaucrat (i.e. the agent that administers the market), if corrupt, may provide a favour in exchange for a bribe. The favour we consider in most of our analysis is the...

The paper reviews the recent evolution of leniency programs for cartels in the US and EU, surveys their theoretical economic analyses, and discusses the empirical and experimental evidence available, also looking briefly at related experiences of rewarding whistleblowers in other fields of law...

We estimate, using event study techniques, the impact of the main events in an antitrust investigation on a firm’s stock market value. A surprise inspection at the firm’s premises has a strong and statistically significant effect on the firm’s share price, with its cumulative average...