Nigeria was incorporated in 1914 when Frederick Lugard(First Governor-General) amalgamated the two British protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria and the Crown colony of Lagos into a single entity. The primary reason for almalgamation was economic rather than political. It is therefore,...

There is much evidence that less democratic countries experience more high-frequency growth volatility. In this paper we report a similar finding about volatility in the medium term: we find evidence that reversals of trend-growth are sharper and more frequent in non-democracies. Motivated by...

The recent empirical growth literature has proposed three underlying fundamental determinants of economic growth, namely, physical geography, economic integration, and institutional quality. This paper unpacks the final determinant into both political-economic institutions as well as the...

Corruption is a problem that has been shown to adversely affect a country’s development. Recent studies have shown that a country’s electoral system can affect its corruption level. But if that is the case, then electoral rules could be chosen to maximize opportunities for corruption. This...

We analyze the effects of CEOs' layoff risk on their risk choice while overseeing a firm. A CEO, whose managerial ability is unknown, is fired if her expected ability is below average. Her risk choice changes the informativeness of output and market's belief about her ability. She can decrease...

The object of analysis is a state as a distributed system of decision making and the subject of analysis is its dysfunction as a result of action of institutional factors, in particular, corruption as an informal negative institute. The obtained results provide grounds for doubts in positive...

In the present essay we examine whether and how sports affected the emergence of democracy as a political phenomenon in Classical Greece. To achieve this we introduce in a model the concept of macroculture as a complex of mutually supporting values, norms and beliefs in various areas of human...

"Political dynasty" refers to the situation wherein members of the same family are occupying elected positions either in sequence for the same position, or simultaneously across different positions. In the Philippines, political dynasties are prevalent in areas with more severe poverty. Two...

This paper presents a theoretical framework to describe the behaviour of the credit rating agencies(CRAs) during the crisis, surveying some reputational game models. CRAs have been blamed of inflating ratings of the new credit risk transfer products (CRTs) and of acting in favour of issuers...

The main purpose of this work is to address a puzzle and suggest strategies towards solutions that are freedom-enhancing. The puzzles: why is there such a tendency towards regionalization and even nationalist protectionism despite the rhetoric of globalization, the structural adjustment policies...