This paper investigates whether inherited legacies such as legal origin allow for the explanation of deforestation in 110 developed and developing countries. I hypothesize that differences on deforestation among countries can be attributed to their legal systems. Also, since nearly all common...

Kahn (2005) found that ethnic heterogeneity reduces the number of deaths caused by natural disasters, a finding that is contrary to theoretical predictions. This paper casts doubt on this finding and conducts a re-estimation. To control for measurement problems, I have used not only an ethnic...

This paper aims to address the empirical question of whether a country's level of manufacturing trade is affected by its financial sector development and to investigate the role of institutions in this relationship. Countries endowed with better-developed financial systems tend to specialize in...

This paper examines how indebted countries have reacted to the recent shift in the global debt relief architecture towards rewarding indebted countries that have ‘superior' institutions with increased debt relief by probing whether there is any empirical evidence to suggest that countries may...

This paper analyzes the determinants of social capital, as generalized trust, from a microeconomic perspective. We review previous results at the aggregate level and test their significance in our setup. Specifically we aim at testing the role of political participation and the quality of...