Existing empirical schemas of class structure do not specify the capitalist class in an adequate manner. We propose a schema in which the specification of capitalist households is based on wealth thresholds. Individuals in noncapitalist households are assigned class locations based on their...

This paper uses newly available data to describe the distribution of crime victimization and other criminal activities (including drug trafficking and corruption) around the world. The paper then documents a negative (positive) correlation between measures of criminal activity and happiness and...

This paper examines the causal link between education and democracy. Motivated by a model whereby educated individuals are in a better position to assess the effects of public policies and hence favor democracy where their opinions matter, the empirical analysis uses World Values Surveys to...

We study the effects of competition by state-owned firms, leveraging the decentralized entry of public pharmacies to local markets in Chile. Public pharmacies sell the same drugs at a third of private pharmacy prices, because of stronger upstream bargaining and market power in the private...

This paper integrates the problem of designing corporate bank-ruptcy rules into a theory of optimal debt structure. We show that, in an incomplete-contracts framework with imperfect renegotiation, having multiple creditors increases a firms debt capacity while increasing its incentives to...

The "revolving door" phenomenon has become very common in most industrialised countries, and is leading to conflicts of interest as well as economic distortions. The purpose of this paper is to develop an indicator of the distortionary effects of the revolving door - The Revolving Door Indicator...

Recent organizational theories suggest that there is a tradeoff between loyalty and competence. This paper tests several such theories in the context of public agencies. Prime ministers, chancellors, and kings alike need to secure the (efficient or inefficient) loyalty of their agencies, such as...

In this paper, we aim to contribute to the recently growing body of political economy literature on growth regimes. Theoretically, we apply the demand and growth regime approach developed within post-Keynesian macroeconomics. This is complemented by a critical comparative political economy...

We contribute to the recent debate in post-Keynesian economics (PKE), comparative political economy (CPE) and international political economy (IPE) on growth regimes. The paper presents an analysis of changes in demand-led growth regimes in the BRICs countries, Brazil, Russia, India, and China,...

I describe a structural method to quantify the contribution of different elements of social choice to the level of redistribution. Estimating a DSGE model with microdata on the support for redistribution, I find that if voters disregarded their ideological views on welfare policies,...