and efficiency across society as a whole. Agency-cost theory recognizes that incentive conflicts and coordination problems … one sector of society at the expense of another. Each rationale sets different goals and assigns responsibiliy for …

cultural heterogeneity, the world's geographical fragmentation by ethic and religious traits, at any given time. Finally, the …

and economic lines. History offers many examples of the recurring tensions between science and organized religion, but as … is a significant and robust negative relationship between religiosity and patents per capita. The political-economy model …

This paper offers a new interpretation of the connection between openness and good governance. Assuming that corruption … open economy' as determined by its size and geography would devote more resources to building good institutions and would … display lower corruption in equilibrium. In data, naturally more open economies' do exhibit less corruption even after taking …

Corruption and imperfect contract enforcement dramatically reduce trade. This paper estimates the reduction, using a …

This paper presents two propositions about corruption. First, the structure of government institutions and the … political process are a very important determinant of the level of corruption. In particular, weak governments which do not … control their agencies would lead to ultra-high corruption levels. Second, the illegality of corruption and the need for …

In this paper, we provide a new framework for analyzing corruption in public bureaucracies. The standard way to model … corruption is as an example of moral hazard, which then leads to a focus on better monitoring and stricter penalties with the … eradication of corruption as the final goal. We propose an alternative approach which emphasizes why corruption arises in the …

for hiding adverse information. It is ironic that what are called accounting ethics' fail to embrace the profession …'s common-law duty of assuring the economic meaningfulness of the statements that clients pay it to endorse …

economics of virtue ethics. Character traits and personality are not considered immutable in either field. They are shaped by … content to virtue ethics and suggest what virtue ethics contributes to the study of economic models …

This paper contains the chapters on welfare economics, morality, and the law from a general, forthcoming book …, Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law (Harvard University Press, 2003). I begin in chapter 26 with a discussion of the normative …, which play an important, if dominant, role in much normative discourse about law, and I discuss the connections between …