Narrow search
Showing 1 - 10 of 461
Cover Image
A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis
Tressel, Thierry; Igan, Deniz; Mishra, Prachi - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2011
Has lobbying by financial institutions contributed to the financial crisis? This paper uses detailed information on … financial institutions' lobbying and mortgage lending activities to answer this question. We find that lobbying was associated … with more risk-taking during 2000-07 and with worse outcomes in 2008. In particular, lenders lobbying more intensively on …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10009021931
Cover Image
Economics versus Politics: Pitfalls of Policy Advice
Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James Alan - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2013
The standard approach to policy-making and advice in economics implicitly or explicitly ignores politics and political economy, and maintains that if possible, any market failure should be rapidly removed. This essay explains why this conclusion may be incorrect; because it ignores politics,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010969258
Cover Image
State Capacity and Economic Development: A Network Approach
Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James Alan; García-Jimeno, … - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2014
We study the direct and spillover effects of local state capacity using the network of Colombian municipalities. We model the determination of local and national state capacity as a network game in which each municipality, anticipating the choices and spillovers created by other municipalities...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010969364
Cover Image
Social Norms and the Enforcement of Laws
Acemoglu, Daron; Jackson, Matthew O. - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2014
We examine the interplay between social norms and the enforcement of laws. Agents choose a behavior (e.g., tax evasion, production of low-quality products, corruption, substance abuse, etc.) and then are randomly matched with another agent. An agent's payoff decreases with the mismatch between...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010885300
Cover Image
Highway to Hitler
Voth, Hans-Joachim; Voigtlaender, Nico - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2014
Can infrastructure investment win "hearts and minds"? We analyze a famous case in the early stages of dictatorship - the building of the motorway network in Nazi Germany. The Autobahn was one of the most important projects of the Hitler government. It was intended to reduce unemployment, and was...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010950692
Cover Image
Left, Right, Left: Income, Learning and Political Dynamics
Morrow, John; Carter, Michael - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2013
The political left turn in Latin America, which lagged its transition to liberalized market economies by a decade or more, challenges conventional economic explanations of voting behavior. This paper generalizes the forward-looking voter model to a broad range of dynamic, non-concave income...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010950705
Cover Image
Advancing the Empirical Research on Lobbying
Figueiredo, John M. de; Richter, Brian Kelleher - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2013
This essay identifies the empirical facts about lobbying which are generally agreed upon in the literature. It then … discusses challenges to empirical research in lobbying and provides examples of empirical methods that can be employed to … discusses the advantages, disadvantages, and effective use of the main types of data available for research in lobbying. It …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010950859
Cover Image
When Ideas Trump Interests: Preferences, World Views, and Policy Innovations
Rodrik, Dani - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2013
The contemporary approach to political economy is built around vested interests - elites, lobbies, and rent-seeking groups which get their way at the expense of the general public. The role of ideas in shaping those interests is typically ignored or downplayed. Yet each of the three components...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010950941
Cover Image
Can't We All Be More Like Scandinavians? Asymmetric Growth and Institutions in an Interdependent World
Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James Alan; Verdier, Thierry A. - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2012
Because of their more limited inequality and more comprehensive social welfare systems, many perceive average welfare to be higher in Scandinavian societies than in the United States. Why then does the United States not adopt Scandinavian-style institutions? More generally, in an interdependent...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010950944
Cover Image
A Theory of Minimalist Democracy
Francois, Patrick; Trebbi, Francesco; Bidner, Chris - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2014
A majority of the world democracies are far from the benchmark of representative democracy. This paper presents a model of political transitions based on a minimalist conception of the democratic state, i.e. a form of government solely characterized by competitive elections. We show that the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010951051