Access to justice is the term used to denote the institutional and social conditions for the realization of rights. In recent international security and development policy, the term is used in various ways as a guiding principle for "good law" and "good justice," and, for actors in these...

Entrepreneurship is usually indentified as an important determinant of aggregate productivity and long-term growth. The determinants of entrepreneurship, nevertheless, are not entirely understood. A recent literature has linked entrepreneurship to the development of the justice system. This...

The medieval Champagne fairs are widely used to draw lessons about the institutional basis for long-distance impersonal exchange. This paper re-examines the causes of the outstanding success of the Champagne fairs in mediating international trade, the timing and causes of the fairs' decline, and...

The law and finance theory predicts that the common law system provides the best basis for financial development and economic growth, followed by Scandinavian and German origin civil law and finally French origin civil law. Referring to a number of sceptical views, this paper argues that the...

Using data from 3,120 farm households surveyed in 2000 and 2006, the paper tests for factors that affect the degree and extent of households' participation in the rural land rental market. The survey period coincided with the full implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program...

Customary rules governing access to land and other natural resources in village societies have characteristics that allow them to fulfil social security functions and achieve equity objectives. This is true of both common-property resources and land parcels held under individualized tenure....

Secure property rights are considered a key determinant of economic development. The evaluation of the causal effects of property rights, however, is a difficult task as their allocation is typically endogenous. To overcome this identification problem, we exploit a natural experiment in the...

Food systems are under increasing pressure. They must meet the food requirements of a growing world population, and socio-economic changes also influence the type of foods which are under demand. At the same time, food systems are a major contributor to global environmental change, and...

Monetary coordination is high on the agenda of different regional organizations in Africa. Economic benefits of a common currency, like lower transaction cost, increased macroeconomic stability, or the shielding of central banks against political pressure from nationalist elites and their...