This paper investigates the political determinants of public sector efficiency using a cross-national data from 117 countries in the period of 2001 to 2010, with a two-stage DEA-Tobit method. The first-stage DEA method finds two types of efficiency frontiers, developing-country frontiers and...

This paper examines the mechanism of political systems influencing urban-rural income gap. Fixed effect models and dynamic panel data models with a cross-national panel data of over 100 countries from 1990 to 2010 are used to estimate the relationship among political systems, urban bias and...

World Heritage inscription denotes recognition of cultural and natural properties that have outstanding universal value. This paper contributes to the debate on the tourism impact of WH inscription with prefectural city data from China. The difference-in-differences framework shows that WH...

This Paper utilizes 188 countries' world panel data (i.e. Penn World Table, see Heston, Summers and Aten, 2006) available from 1950 to 2003 to inquire the dual side relationships between government size and economic development. On the one hand, the expanse of government activities promotes...

It has long been hypothesized that democracy benefits the poor; however, the hypothesis still lacks solid empirical evidence. This paper contributes to providing new worldwide evidence on the poverty reduction effect of democracy which we refer to as the Amartya Sen hypothesis. The...