The cost of complying with a sanitary standard is certain. However, such regulatory measure is a source of uncertainty for exporting firms in relation to border rejections. Shipments may fail to pass inspections and may be refused entry into the importing country. We examine how the risk of...

This research explores the origins of the distribution of time preference across regions. It advances the hypothesis, and establishes empirically that geographical variations in the natural return to agricultural investment have had a persistent effect on the distribution of time preference...

In a major setback for the EU, only two of four Eastern Partnership countries actually initialed Association Agreements at the Vilnius Summit in November 2013. This paper asks what went wrong and what can be done about it. Using a gravity model to estimate the effects of deep and shallow free...

The paper analyzes the relation between monetary uncertainty and government incentives to implement economic reforms that reduce structural distortions and make economies more flexible. It is shown that uncertainty about the central bank's reaction function leads to more reforms. I relate this...

In this paper we use a transparent statistical methodology – synthetic control methods – to implement data-driven comparative studies about the impact of autocratic transition on real per capita GDP. The applied methodology compares the growth of countries that experienced a transition to...

Estimations of the size and development of the shadow economy for 145 countries, including developing, transition and highly developed OECD economies over the period 1999 to 2003 are presented. The average size of the shadow economy (as a percent of "official" GDP) in 2002/03 in 96 developing...

Farmers are often exempted from VAT for administrative and political reasons. But this means that the VAT on their inputs cannot be ‘washed out' through the tax deduction/credit mechanism. To compensate farmers for the uncompensated VAT on inputs, the EU has devised a flat-rate scheme that...