This dissertation is a collection of three essays on high school dropout by adolescents and the roll of their siblings in this risky behavior. Dropping out of high school can scar the individual for his entire labor supply period with lower earnings, higher unemployment, and in turn incur...

In this dissertation I examine a set of crucial topics in the political economy of international trade, with an emphasis on firm-level heterogeneity. The first chapter is an empirical study of the new trade theories in which firm heterogeneity and trade costs play central roles in shaping the...

Stabilization policies witnessed in less developed countries has been the focus of many studies in economics. This study is intended to shed light on some of those stabilization packages and their effects on the economies of LDC's, particularly, Jordan. What makes Jordan an interesting case...

Direct foreign investment (DFI) by transnational enterprises (TNEs) is an important vehicle of capital and technology transfer among countries. Yet, the possibility of heavy taxation and expropriation by the governments of host countries seems to be a serious impediment to the more extensive use...

In this paper we test a general equilibrium model of the size and growth of government developed by Dao and Esfahani (1995) using OECD cross-sectional and US time-series data. The model is based on the assumption that various socioeconomic groups try to redistribute income in their favor....

Develops a general equilibrium model of the growth of government based on the attempts of various socio-economic groups to redistribute income in their own favour. In the non-cooperative equilibrium of our model under free political competition, every group in the economy pays taxes at rates...