We study the role of an enforcer in the effectiveness of selective incentives in solving the collective action problem when groups take part in a contest. Cost functions exhibit constant elasticity of marginal effort costs. If prize valuations are homogeneous, our source of heterogeneity induces...

Persistent budget deficits are commonly blamed on irresponsible governments. However, even if the government is fiscally responsible, the agents in charge of implementing the budget may be less concerned about fiscal discipline. According to the survey data analyzed in this paper, such conflicts...

Do strong states affect the culture and actions of their citizens in a persistent way? And if so, can the capacity to tax, by itself, have a role in driving this effect? I study how the historical capacity of a state to collect taxes affects the decision of citizens to evade the mandatory...

Do strong states affect the culture and actions of their citizens in a persistent way? And if so, can the capacity to tax, by itself, drive this effect? I study how the historical capacity of a state to collect taxes affects the decision of citizens to evade the mandatory military draft. I look...

Economists have traditionally treated preferences as exogenously given. Preferences are assumed to be influenced by neither beliefs nor the constraints people face. As a consequence, changes in behaviour are explained exclusively in terms of changes in the set of feasible alternatives. Here we...

A decision maker (DM) must address a series of problems over time. Each period, a random case arises and the DM must make a yes-or-no decision, which we call a ruling. She is uncertain about the correct ruling until she conducts a costly investigation. A ruling establishes a precedent, which may...

Research on crime in the late 20th century has consistently shown, that despite the public rhetoric, immigrants have lower rates of involvement in criminal activity than natives. The earliest studies of immigration and crime conducted at the beginning of the 20th century produced similar...

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...

What is the long-term effect of organised crime presence on social capital accumulation? By leveraging novel social capital and organised crime data, this study investigates this question within the Italian landscape. In an instrumental variable (IV) setting, we exploit the forced resettlement...

International refugee law is binding upon all European Union member states, however European regional instruments, relocation theories and practices may diverge from the 1951 Geneva Convention and 1967 Protocol. This may lead to the violation of the ius cogens norm of the principle of...