Due to incomplete contracts, efficiency of an organization depends on willingness of individuals to take non-selfish actions, e.g., cooperate when there is no incentive to do so, or punish inefficient actions by others. Organizations also constitute a social boundary, or group. We investigate...

Do the parties in a typical dispute face incentives similar to those in the classic prisoner's dilemma game? In this paper, we explore whether the costs and benefits of legal representation are such that each party seeks legal representation in the hope of exploiting the other party, while...

This article examines the role of business in the historical development of job security regulations in Germany from their creation in the inter-war period to the dawn of the crisis of the 'German Model' in the 1980s. It contrasts the varieties of capitalism approach, which sees business as...

We use the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) household survey from post-conflict Kosovo to examine economic deprivation among Serbs and Albanians. Economic deprivation is measured by per capita household expenditure and by the incidence of poverty as captured by the headcount ratio. We...

Despite a significant expansion of the literature on conflicts and fragility of states, only a few systematic attempts have been made to link the theoretical literature on social conflicts to the available micro-level information about the people who are involved in these conflicts. We address...

This paper investigates the empirical role of violent conflicts for the causal effect of democracy on economic growth. Exploiting within-country variation to identify the effect of democratization during the Third Wave, we find evidence that the effect of democratization is weaker than reported...

The dual economy development models hold minimum wages (among other institutions) accountable for persistent dualism. We use 12 years of micro data on thousands workers in Costa Rica to test whether legal minimum wages have a differential impact on wages in the formal sector vs. informal sector,...

This paper investigates the effects of legal minimum wages on wages, employment, hours worked and monthly earnings among workers covered by minimum wage legislation as well as those for whom it does not apply (the uncovered sector) in Costa Rica. This country?s large uncovered sector and complex...

This paper contributes to our understanding of the impact of institutions on incomes of workers in developing countries by rigorously addressing the question as to whether changes in minimum wages can change the inequality of the distribution of earnings. More specifically, we analyze whether...

More than half of those who emigrate from developing countries move to other developing countries, yet there have been few studies of the impact of this South-South migration. In this paper, we examine the impact of migration from one developing country, Nicaragua, on the labor market in another...