Previous studies have found underestimation of risk, or overconfidence, to be a key factor in entrepreneurship. We use a simple model of competitive equilibrium to show that an irrational under-estimation of risk provides a competitive advantage leading to a greater chance of survival under...

We investigate how vertical unity within a community interacts with horizontal class divisions of an unequal income distribution. Community is conceptualized in terms of a public good to which all those in the community have equal access, but from which outsiders are excluded. We formulate the...

Trust is a critical component of interfirm relations, and scholars have pointed to Japan as an environment where trusting relationships flourish. In looking for environmental characteristics important for enabling and sustaining trust in Japan, we propose that a critical role is played by a...

Wealthy individuals often voluntarily provide public goods that the poor also consume. Such philanthropy is commonly perceived as legitimizing one’s wealth. Governments routinely exempt the rich from taxation on grounds of their charitable expenditures. We examine the logic of this exemption....

This is an overview of poverty and well-being in the first decade of post-apartheid South Africa. It is an introduction to a volume that brings together some of the most prominent academic research done on this topic for the 10-year review process in South Africa. This overview highlights three...

So what’s social policy got to do with economic growth? Quite a lot, it would appear, if one takes the results of cross-country growth regressions at face value, as they are by many social policy analysts, even as they criticize the findings of the economic policy part of the very same...