Employer-provided severance pay in the U.S. emerged among salaried workers during the Great Depression as an alternative to modest advance notice and expanded in the late 1950s and 1960s, especially among union (hourly) workers. A variety of sources are employed to estimate variations in...

This paper empirically examines the widespread belief that voluntarily negotiated agreements produce better long-run relationships than third-party imposed settlements, such as arbitrator decisions or court judgments. Two key outcomes are analyzed – subsequent player performance and the...

In this study we experimentally investigate whether solidarity, which is a crucial base for informal insurance arrangements in developing countries, is sensitive to the extent to which individuals can influence their risk exposure. With slum dwellers of Nairobi our design measures subjects'...

Do empires affect attitudes towards the state long after their demise? We hypothesize that the Habsburg Empire with its localized and well-respected administration increased citizens' trust in local public services. In several Eastern European countries, communities on both sides of the...

We document that trust in public institutions ﾖ and particularly trust in banks, business and government ﾖ has declined over recent years. U.S. time series evidence suggests that this partly reflects the pro-cyclical nature of trust in institutions. Cross-country comparisons reveal a clear...

We analyse a micro-panel data set to investigate the effect of regional institutional environment and economic factors on Russian new firm entry rates across time, industries and regions. The paper builds on novel databases and exploits inter-regional variation in a large number of institutional...

We develop entrepreneurship and institutional theory to explain variation in different types of entrepreneurship across individuals and institutional contexts. Our framework generates hypotheses about the negative impact of higher levels of corruption, weaker property rights and especially...

Using firm-level data from nine developing countries we demonstrate that (a) certain institutions like restrictive labour market regulations that are considered to be bad for economic growth might be beneficial for production efficiency, whereas (b) good business environment which is considered...

Institutions are now widely believed to be important in explaining performance. In this paper, we analyze whether commonly used measures of institutions have any significant, measurable impact on performance, whether of countries or firms. We look at three 'levels' of institutions and associated...

This paper examines the relationship between institutions and the remuneration of different jobs by comparing the German and Belgian labour markets with respect to a typology of institutions (social representations, norms, conventions, legislation, and organisations). The observed institutional...