This paper addresses two questions: (1) Is a twelve country monetary union in Europe feasible; (2) Can monetary union be achieved at multi-speed, i.e., with a rust group of countries going first, and later admitting the others? After examining several politico-economic arguments concerning...

In the 1990’s descentralization in Colombia, a process which had begun a decade earlier, was sharply accelerated. The percentage of current Central Government revenues that are automatically transferred to the regional governments quickly jumped from about 20% to over 40%. Many analysts...

Abstract: In the last decade the issue of the optimal degree of central bank independence has been at the center of attention of academics and policymakers in many countries. The direction of institutional reform has almost universally been toward making central banks more independent from...

Introduction. Colombia faces a critical juncture in its recent history. One road leads to violence, chaos and economic collapse. The other leads to peace, reforms and economic progress. Hoping that the second road will be chosen, this document offers ideas about institutional reforms and...

This paper examines the regional distribution of public employment in Italy and documents two sets of facts. The first is the use of public employment as a subsidy from the North to the less wealthy South. We calculate that about half of the wage bill in the South of Italy can be identified as a...

We study which policy tool and at what level a majority chooses in order to reduce activities with negative externalities. We consider three instruments: a rule, that sets an upper limit to the activity which produces the negative externality, a quota that forces a proportional reduction of the...

We develop and test a model of joint determination of economic growth and national election results in the United States. The formal model, which combines developments in the rational choice analysis of the behavior of economic agents and voters, leads to a system of equations in which the...

This paper tests the existence and the extent of a politically induced business cycle in the U.S. in the post—World War II period. The cycle described in this paper is different from the traditional "political business cycle" of Nordhaus. It is based on a systematic difference between the...

The study examines the historical origins of existing cross-cultural differences in beliefs and values regarding the appropriate role of women in society. We test the hypothesis that traditional agricultural practices influenced the historical gender division of labor and the evolution of gender...

In Justice Delayed, leading authorities on law and economics from Latin America and the United States analyze the problems of Latin America's judicial sector and propose strategies for solving them.Abstract: Este libro recoge los trabajos presentados en la Segunda Conferencia sobre Justicia y...