This paper provides evidence on the degree of persistence of one of the key components of the CAPM, namely the market risk premium, as well as its volatility. The analysis applies fractional integration methods to data for the US, Germany and Japan, and for robustness purposes considers...

This paper explores the role of information transmission and misaligned interests across levels of government in explaining variation in the degree of decentralization across countries. Within a two-sided incomplete information principal-agent framework, it analyzes two alternative...

We review the literature on the political economy of international organizations (IOs). Considering IOs as products of the preferences of various actors rather than monolithic entities we focus on national politicians, international bureaucrats, interest groups, and voters. By looking into the...

We investigate the effects of short-term political motivations on the effectiveness of foreign aid. Specifically, we test whether the effect of aid on economic growth is reduced by the share of years a country has served on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in the period the aid has...

This paper argues that skill formation is a life-cycle process and develops the implications of this insight for Scottish social policy. Families are major producers of skills, and a successful policy needs to promote effective families and to supplement failing ones. Targeted early...