There is evidence for the long-run persistence of geographical variation in tolerance towards other ethnicities. However, existing studies of tolerance use data from countries with long-standing patterns of ethnic diversity, so it is unclear whether the inter-generational transmission is in...

In conventional wisdom, the reform of British copyright law during the eighteenth century brought an end to the monopoly on the sale of books held by the Stationers’ Company, and the resulting competition was one of the driving forces behind the expansion of British book production during...

We present a theoretical model of moral hazard and adverse selection in an imperfectly competitive loans market that is suitable for application to Africa. The model allows for variation in both the level of contract enforcement (depending on the quality of governance) and the degree of market...

There is some evidence from field studies and natural experiments that levels of charitable donation depend on the method in which donations are solicited. There is also some experimental evidence that spending on private consumption depends on how much loose change people have. We use a simple...

Most studies find that relative price variability (RPV) is a U-shaped or V-shaped function of anticipated inflation, and a V-shaped function of unanticipated inflation. One exception is Reinsdorf (1994), who finds that RPV in the United States during the 1980s recession was monotonically...

Recent empirical research into the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy shocks has generated a 'puzzle'. Both Keynesian and Real Business Cycle models predict that a fiscal expansion will lead to a real exchange rate appreciation. However, in almost all the countries that have been studied,...

Using a survey and an experiment, we identify the personal characteristics associated with the difference between an individual's giving to charity and her vote in a referendum on charitable giving. Under certain circumstances, high levels of self-reported trust and happiness, and participation...

This paper econometrically examines the impact of aid on the well-being of population sub-groups within 48 developing countries. This is a radical departure from previous empirical research of aid effectiveness at the country level, which has looked mainly at the relationship between aid and...

International aid has an ambiguous effect on the macro-economy of the recipient country. To the extent that aid raises consumer expenditure, there will be some real exchange rate appreciation and a shift of resources away from traded goods production and into non-traded goods production....

Several existing papers explore the extent to which the cross-country variation in measures of democracy and political rights can be explained by the cross-country variation in foreign aid inflows. Using panel data, we explore the extent to which the variation over time in such measures can be...