Followers of law, politics and business commonly relate stories of individuals who appear to predict an expected self-performance level below what they believe likely. Candidates, attorneys and firms sometimes seem to under-predict their own capacities. Insofar as individuals typically construct...

Economic growth is below what would be needed to resume rapid convergence to average OECD living standards. On-going efforts to improve the business climate are laudable, but need to be widened and strengthened. Much progress has been achieved in reducing red tape, but it is only recently that...

In November 2012, RF Minister of Defense Anatoly Serdiukov, accused of abetting corruption in his ministry, was sacked from office; former Deputy Minister of Regional Development was arrested; criminal proceedings against the managers of Rostelekom and the former top officials of the RF Ministry of...

It is common to think that replacing a judge with a new appointment nearer an ideological extreme will pull outcomes on the court in the ideological direction of the new appointment. This paper argues that this intuition is not always correct, at least for a class of close cases. The model...