We use the 2012-2018 China Family Panel Studies data to examine the relationship between household energy poverty and an individual’s probability of becoming an entrepreneur. Consistent with the theory of underdog entrepreneurship that negative personal circumstances can foster self-reliance,...

Using the 2012-2018 waves of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we investigate the impact of energy poverty (EP) on health care expenditures among Chinese adults aged 18+. Employing a methodology combining a random effects two-part model and instrumental variable estimations, we show that EP...

We analyze the spread of policies dealing with international trafficking in human beings. Arguing that countries are unlikely to make independent choices, we identify pressure, externalities and learning or emulation as plausible diffusion mechanisms for spatial dependence in anti-trafficking...

The risk of default that business firms face is very significant and differs widely across countries. This paper explores the links between countries' business conditions and international trade embedment and the default risk at the country level from a theoretical point of view. Our main...

Migration is an important and yet neglected determinant of institutions. The paper documents the channels through which emigration affects home country institutions and considers dynamic-panel regressions for a large sample of developing countries. We find that emigration and human capital both...

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...

We develop a general equilibrium model of international trade with heterogeneous firms, where countries can invest into basic research to improve their technological potential. These research investments tighten firm selection and raise the average productivity of firms in the market, thereby...

This paper argues, in line with the proposals of the recent Stiglitz Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, that we should now be measuring a nation's emotional prosperity rather than its economic prosperity (that is, we ought to focus on the level of mental...

The last few years have seen a notable increase in the number of studies investigating the causes and effects of natural disasters in many dimensions. This paper seeks to review and assess available empirical evidence on the ex-post microeconomic effects of natural disasters on the accumulation...