The paper analyzes the impact of institutional and cultural factors on a remarkable economic activity: the production of so-called open source software (OSS). OSS is marked by free access to the software and its source code. Copyright-based OSS licenses permit users to use, change, improve and...

This study presents an evolutionary process of secularization that integrates a theoretical model, simulations, and an empirical estimation that employs data from 32 countries (included in the International Social Survey Program: Religion II - ISSP, 1998). Following Bisin and Verdier (2000,...

This brief survey contains a review of several new empirical papers that attempt to measure the extent of monopsony in labor markets. As noted originally by Joan Robinson, monopsonistic exploitation represents the gap between the value of a worker's marginal product and the worker's wage, and it...

This paper empirically analyzes the impact of aid on education for about 100 countries over the period 1970 - 2005. We estimate a system of equations to test whether and to what extent the impact of sector-specific aid on educational attainment depends on (i) the extent to which aid adds to...

Western countries differ greatly in the extent to which single mothers participate in the labor market. Using LIS data for 15 countries, I propose and estimate a simple structural model of labor supply that incorporates the main variables that influence the work decision for single mothers. The...

This paper examines the effect of public assistance, labor market and marriage market conditions on the prevalence of single mother families across countries and over time. A multinomial logit derived from a random utility approach is estimated using individual-level data for 14 countries. I...

Using an improved definition and indicator of growth accelerations, we examine whether political regimes, regime changes, and economic reform are related to growth accelerations. Our results show that economic growth accelerations are preceded by economic reforms. Furthermore, we find that...