In an article published in Development and Change in 2011, I suggested an alternative measure of inequality to the Gini - a "19th Century statistic" - which has subsequently become known as the ´Palma Ratio'. In this new article, I revisit the argument for such a measure. Using new data, I...

This paper develops a demographic model of the currency population by examining the birth and death rates of specific denominations of currency. This framework permits empirical estimation of the average lifetime of notes in circulation and hence the currency velocity (turnovers per year) of...

This paper develops a demographic model of the currency population by examining the birth and death rates of specific denominations of currency. This framework permits empirical estimation of the average lifetime of notes in circulation and hence the currency velocity (turnovers per year) of...

Despite financial innovations that have created important new substitutes for cash usage, per capita holdings of U.S. currency amount to $2950. Yet American households and businesses admit to holding only 15 percent of the currency stock, leaving the whereabouts of 85 percent unknown. Some...

Tax evasion has existed historically. The present study lists rationalizations for tax evasion in a survey consisting of 18 questions. This survey has been used in the past including a survey of business students in China by McGee, Yoon and Li (2015). The present study surveys Chinese business...

This paper explores the importance of the exercise of private and public power in the execution of contracts and defense of property rights at the local labor market level in the United States. Using Census microdata, we examine the rise of "Guard Labor"---classified as individuals employed in...

Nation-building is a broad term used to describe international efforts to conduct exogenous institutional change in weak and failed states primarily through the use of military force. The prevailing view is that nation-building is best accomplished by imposing democratic institutions (the...

This paper presents an empirical examination of economic and institutional development. Utilizing a novel data set on American Indian tribal nations, we investigate how constitutional design affects economic development, while holding the broader legal and political environment fixed....

Unskilled labor is the abundant resource in many developing countries, especially at an early stage of their development. Yet, even as at given technologies labor markets have not cleared, neo-classical economists have rejected the notion of an institutional or bargaining wage not based on...