This paper presents a theoretical framework to describe the behaviour of the credit rating agencies(CRAs) during the crisis, surveying some reputational game models. CRAs have been blamed of inflating ratings of the new credit risk transfer products (CRTs) and of acting in favour of issuers...

This article investigates the analytical line of reasoning in D. North’s, J. Wallis’ and B. Weingast’s research project “Violence and Social Orders”, which unifies in an institutional explanation scheme the control over violence in human societies, the equilibrium of interests among...

Taxing small deposits used to be a taboo in European politics – but why? This contribution re-assesses the protection of small deposits from an angle that has not received much attention in the current debate: the politico-philosophical, ordo-liberal, and social-political perspectives, arguing...

In a model of repeated games, we determine the conditions under which cooperation is an equilibrium outcome among the G-20 countries. We consider first, that members are uncertain about the lifespan of the G-20. Second, the nature of member countries and their interrelations can change because...

This article assumes that within the next five years or so the bulk of the Islamic world will get rid of their dictators and aims to propose a blue print of governance for the newly emerging democracies.

We analyze the effects of CEOs' layoff risk on their risk choice while overseeing a firm. A CEO, whose managerial ability is unknown, is fired if her expected ability is below average. Her risk choice changes the informativeness of output and market's belief about her ability. She can decrease...

A long tradition in economics explores the association between the quality of formal institutions and economic performance. The literature on the relationship between such institutions and happiness is, however, rather limited, and inconclusive. In this paper, we revisit the findings from recent...

One of the main obstacles for successful economic development is the formation of institutional traps, inefficient yet stable norms of behaviour. Domination of barter exchange, arrears, corruption and black market activities are examples of institutional traps that have hampered reforms in...

Corporations discover that social responsibility pays off. However, sometimes doing what is ethical will prove costly to a company. The purpose of this article is to clarify this trade-off by developing an economic model that describes the choice between profits and principles. The model is used...

Reputation systems that rely on feedback from traders are important institutions for helping sustain trust in markets, while feedback information is usually considered a public good. We apply both theoretical models and experiments to study how raters' feedback behavior responds to different...