Institutions are the humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic, and social interaction. They consist of both informal constraints (sanctions, taboos, customs, traditions, and codes of conduct), and formal rules (constitutions, laws, property rights). Throughout history,...

In the present paper we study the distributive impact of institutional change in developing countries. In such economies, economic institutions, such as property rights systems, may act to preserve the interests of a rich minority, but this depends crucially on the level of political equality....

This paper develops a model of political consensus in order to explain the missing link between inequality and political redistribution. Political consensu s is an implicit agreement not to vote for extreme policy proposals. We show tha t such an agreement may play an efficiency-enhancing role....

Many important economic and political decisions are made by teams. In the economic literature, however, the decision units are frequently modeled as individual economic agents. The paper experimentally investigates the question to what extent observed team decisions under risk are actually...

There are two main approaches for defining social welfare relations for an economy with infinite horizon. The first one is to consider the set of intertemporal utility streams generated by a general set of bounded consumptions, and define a preference relation between them. This relation is...

This paper questions the link between the establishment of a common currency among several countries and the necessity of political coordination. It begins by discussing why conducting a single monetary policy is thought to be easier within a single political unit. It then proceeds to enquire...

The present paper is the synopsis of my doctoral dissertation, which assumes that – in addition to rational factors – the dispositions of management also decisively affect business decisions, and thus business executives' mindset and behavioral patterns (their 'habitus') should be the target...

In this paper we introduce two models of opinion dynamics in oligopoly markets and apply them to a situation, where a new entrant challenges two incumbents of the same size. The models differ in the way the two forces influencing consumer choice - (local) social interactions and (global)...

This study posits that Internet technologies are relaxing the coupling constraints required for the consumption of digital games, resulting in entirely different modes of consumption than has been the norm for the past thirty years. The data collection and analysis found that players of...

Extensive multilingualism is one of the most important and fundamental principles of the European Union. However, a large number of official languages (currently 23) hinders communication and imposes substantial financial and legal costs. We address the merits of multilingualism and formulate an...