Using panel data for 19 OECD countries covering the period 1986-1995, we find effect of general economic uncertainty on venture-capital investments to be significantly negative. The more irreversible late-stage venture-capital investments are much more adversely affected by such uncertainty than...

Adding to the literature on the effects of government decentralization, this paper uses a large sample of individual responses from more than a hundred countries about public's perceptions of government's performance along various dimensions to study the relative influences of different types of...

This study uses a large firm-level data set covering more than 80 countries to explore the effects of firm-size, city-size, and government-size on perceived and experienced corruption. Four points summarize our main findings, which seem instructive and new. First, there is a broad structural...

Using a fairly rich household data set, this study assesses (a) "allocative" and "direct" components of the productivity effect of schooling, and (b) the male-female productivity differentials in the setting of a highly traditional farming system in Burkina Faso. The rate of return to schooling...