Many economists believe that the nature of exchange rate management was an important reason for rapid economic growth in East Asia. In this view, Asian countries avoided extreme exchange rate appreciations and kept their nominal exchange rates close to market clearing levels. In contrast, the...

During the 19th century, the Spanish economy went through the early stages of the industrialisation process. This process developed in parallel to the growing market integration of goods and factors as a result of the liberal reforms and the construction of the railway network, with the...

We measure people’s prosocial behavior, in terms of voluntary money and labor time contributions to an archetypical public good, a bridge, and in terms of voluntary money contributions in a public good game, using the same non-student sample in rural Vietnam at four different points in time...

This paper derives Pareto efficient policy rules for the provision of national as well as global public goods in a two-country world, where each individual cares about relative consumption within as well as between countries. Furthermore, we compare these policy rules with those that follow from...

The optimal provision of a state-variable public good, where the global climate is the prime example, is analyzed in a model where people care about their relative consumption. We consider both keeping-up-with-the-Joneses preferences (where people compare their own current consumption with...

Understanding the motivations behind people’s voluntary contributions to public goods is crucial for the broader issues of economic and social development. By using the experimental design of Fischbacher et al. (2001), we investigate the distribution of contribution types in two developing...

Common identity and peer punishment have been identified as important means to reduce free riding and to promote cooperation in teamwork settings. This paper examines the relative importance of these two mechanisms, as well as the importance of income distribution in team cooperation. In a...

Reciprocity can be a powerful motivation for human behaviour. Scholars argue that it is relevant in the context of private provision of public goods. We examine whether reciprocity can resolve the associated coordination problem. The interaction of reciprocity with cost-sharing is critical....

We explore the effect of income inequality and peer punishment on voluntary provision of public goods in an experimental context. Our sample draws from nine fishing communities in South-Africa where high levels of inequality prevail. We find that aggregate cooperation is higher in both the...

Many fundraisers report donations using categories such as more than £ 1000, more than £ 10,000 etc. One naturally wonders how we should categorise donations and whether category reporting can raise more funds than simple uncategorised reporting. To shed light on these questions, we employ a...