Using data for over 100 nations over the years 2004–2007, this study examines the effect, of institutional quality on environmental pollution, focusing primarily on influences of corruption, and the shadow economy, and paying special attention to MENA countries. Controlling for a, number of...

Using cross-national panel data, Krause and Méndez recently studied whether voters retract support from political candidates who they think are corrupt. Their main finding is that corruption in public office is effectively punished by voters. Given the well-known issues with adequately...

Using recent cross-national data, this research examines the determinants of the shadow economy, focusing on the relative effects of military and non-military government spending. Results show that, other things being the same, nations with larger military spending have smaller shadow economies,...

This paper focuses on the empirical link between monetary policy transparency and output volatility. Key questions addressed are: (i) Does transparency about policy processes stabilize output? (ii) Whether different aspects of transparency differ qualitatively or quantitatively in terms of their...

This paper studies monetary policy committee transparency (MPCT) based on a new index that measures central bankers’ educational and professional backgrounds as disclosed through central bank websites. Based on a novel cross-sectional data set covering 75 central banks, we investigate the...

This paper focuses on the empirical link between monetary policy transparency and output volatility. The questions addressed are: (i) Does transparency about policy processes stabilize output? (ii) Do different aspects of transparency differ qualitatively or quantitatively in terms of their...

Political stability is generally hailed as an asset that yields positive economic dividends. In particular, the macroeconomic environment is likely to benefit from political stability. On the other hand, the existence of a sizeable shadow (or informal) economy represents institutional weaknesses...

Environmental regulation may remain incomplete in the presence of informal sector. Due to differences in environmental policies, institutional effectiveness and other demographic reasons, this incompleteness may be more damaging for developing countries than others. This paper investigates these...