Most corporate finance models of firm behavior study the typical U.S. corporation: one firm with a large set of dispersed shareholders. In contrast, in many countries around the world, firms are often held in groups with complicated ownership structures. These groups, often referred to as...

We examine the influence of three historically important sources of social divisions on the availability of public goods in rural India: colonial power, landowner-peasant relations as determined by the land tenure system and social fragmentation based on the Hindu caste system and the presence...