This paper analyses the causes of managerial change and the impact of different reforms on firm performance, using survey data from 300 Ukrainian firms. The main findings are: 1) ownership and competition are linked to managerial change: de novo firms but also privatised firms experienced less...

This paper examines group formation in group-credit contracts recently popular in credit programs for the poor. The joint-liability in these contracts induces a correlation between the choice of partner and of repayment strategy. We show that this leads to non-monotone matching patterns, which...

A new family of kernels is suggested for use in heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation consistent (HAC) and long run variance (LRV) estimation and robust regression testing. The kernels are constructed by taking powers of the Bartlett kernel and are intended to be used with no truncation (or...

We examine the incentives of an interest group to provide a political decision-maker with policy-relevant information and to exert pressure on her. Both activities are costly but may induce the lobby's preferred policy. Our paper provides an integrated analysis of both lobbying activities and...

Recent research suggests that income redistribution preferences vary across identity groups. We employ a new pattern recognition technology to uncover what these groups are. Using data from the General Social Survey, we present a new stylized fact that preferences for governmental provision of...

The market mechanisms built into the Kyoto Protocol have the potential of significantly reducing costs of limiting greenhouse gases. But if trading proceeds on a bilateral project-by-project basis rather than on a frictionless market, the total cost saving potential of trading is unclear. This...

Since the Asian economic crisis in 1997, some have argued that the poor corporate governance system was a contributing cause of the crisis. They claim that the weakness of minority shareholders' rights protection and the lack of market discipline for poor performing firms in the region made it...

With widely publicized high repayment rates, microfinance is gaining a great deal of attention. Using data from Guatemala, this paper examines risk matching in credit groups. The literature often assumes that joint-liability will lead groups to form homogeneously in risk, and that risk...

Many models in the economics literature deal with strategic situations with privately informed agents. In those models the information structure is assumed to be exogenous and common knowledge. In many applications information gathering is one of the strategic options available to agents. We...

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