In this paper we consider a model of cooperative production in which rational agents have the possibility to engage in sabotage activities that decrease output. It is shown that sabotage depends on the interplay between the degree of congestion, the technology of sabotage, the number of agents...

We study the dynamic support for fiscal decentralization in a political agency model from the perspective of a region. We show that corruption opportunities are lower under centralization at each period of time. However, centralization makes more difficult for citizens to detect corrupt...

Recent research has shown that two entropy-based segregation indices possess an appealing mixture of basic and subsidiary but useful properties. It would appear that the only fundamental difference between the mutual information, or M index, and the Entropy, Information or H index, is that the...

Using a dynamic model of unionism and wage determination we find that the unobserved factors that influence union membership also affect wages. We observe a significant decline in trade union membership persistence during the period under analysis. We find that UK trade unions still play a...

Voters often split tickets, voting for candidates from different parties in simultaneous elections. In this paper, I apply a political agency framework with implicit incentives to study ticket splitting in simultaneous municipal and regional elections. I show that ticket splitting is a natural...

The Investment Climate surveys (ICSs) are valuable instruments which improve our understanding of the economic, social, political and institutional factors determining economic growth, particularly in emerging and transition economies. However, at the same time, they have to overcome some...

This paper provides a systematic, empirical assessment of the impact of infrastructure quality on the total factor productivity (TFP) of African manufacturing firms. This measure is understood to include quality in the provision of customs clearance, energy, water, sanitation, transportation,...

During the past two decades, innovations protected by patents have played a key role in business strategies. This fact enhanced studies of the determinants of patents and the impact of patents on innovation and competitive advantage. Sustaining competitive advantages is as important as creating...

This paper introduces a novel methodology for comparing the citation distributions of research units working in the same homogeneous field. Given a critical citation level (CCL), we suggest using two real valued indicators to describe the shape of any distribution: a highimpact and a low-impact...

In order to understand what motivates parents to send their children to work, I apply a collective household model introducing child labor explicitly. Using data from Mexico, I estimate the mothers' bargaining power separately from the other parameters of the model. This parameter is then used...