The paper estimates the effect of product standards on firms? export decisions using two novel datasets. The first covers all exporting firms in 42 developing countries. The second covers pesticide standards for 243 agricultural and food products in 63 importing countries over 2006?12. The...

This paper investigates the factors associated with foreign direct investment "surges" and "stops," defined as sharp increases and decreases, respectively, of gross foreign direct investment inflows to the developing world and differentiated based on whether these events are led by waves in...

This paper examines the impact of U.S. market access on local labor markets in a developing country, Vietnam. The study finds that following the implementation of the Vietnam?United States bilateral trade agreement in December 2001, manufacturing employment increased in provinces that were more...

Fiscal equalization programs are fairly common features of intergovernmental fiscal relations in industrial countries. Some developing countries have also recently introduced these programs and still others are contemplating such programs. Institutional arrangements for fiscal equalization vary...

Oil discoveries can constitute a major positive and exogenous shock to economic activity, but the resource curse hypothesis would suggest they might also be detrimental to growth over the long run. This paper utilizes a new methodology for estimating growth underperformance to examine the extent...

This paper offers new evidence on the relationship between contractual institutions, family management, and aggregate performance. The study creates a new firm-level database on management and ownership structures spanning 134 regions in 11 European countries. To guide the empirical analysis, it...

This paper considers the possibility of collective action by the business community to counter corruption in the award of government licenses and contracts. The analogy is with contract enforcement institutions studied by economic historians and contract law scholars. The institution in this...

This paper considers institutional and structural factors associated with investment activity in a panel of up to 129 developed and developing countries. It introduces these factors to a standard neoclassical investment function for open economies, and find that financial development and...

This paper reviews the findings of more than 150 studies on the impacts of four types of labor market institutions: minimum wages, employment protection regulation, unions and collective bargaining, and mandated benefits. The review places particular emphasis on results from developing...