This paper develops a theory of informal insurance in the presence of an intertemporal technology. It is shown that when an insurance agreement suffers from enforcement problems, constraints on individual savings behaviour can enable the group to sustain greater cooperation. This result provides...

Few researchers have examined the nature and determinants of earnings differentials among religious groups, and none has been undertaken in the context of conflict-prone multi-religious societies likethe one in India. We address this lacuna in the literature by examining the differences in the...

Inter- and intra-state disparities in levels of literacy rates in India are striking, especially for the marginalized groups of women and low caste population. The present paper offers an explanation of this disparate development in terms of elite dominance that discriminates against the...

In this paper we use a comparative perspective to explore the ways in which institutions and networks have influenced entrepreneurial development in Russia. We utilize Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data to study the effects of the weak institutional environment in Russia on...

What is the relationship between economic growth and its volatility? Does political instability affect growth directly or indirectly, through volatility? This paper tries to answer such questions using a power-ARCH framework with annual time series data for Argentina from 1896 to 2000. We show...

Two players are endowed with resources for setting up N locations on K identical circles, with N K= 1. The players alternately choose these locations (possibly in batches of more than one in each round) in order to secure the area closer to their locations than that of their rival's. They face...

The present paper examines the effects of ownership structures on capital structure and firm valuation and argues that the effects of separation of control from cash flow rights on capital structure and firm value also depend on the separation of control from management as well as legal rules...

This paper challenges cross-sectional findings that democratic institutions have a negligible direct effect on economic growth. We employ a newly constructed data-set of permanent democratic transitions during the so-called Third Wave of Democratization and examine the within effect of...

The European Union has recently expanded from 15 to 25 countries, bringing the number of official languages to 20. Currently, the EU extends equal treatment to all member countries’ official languages. This, however, is costly, especially since many Europeans speak one of the procedural...

In this paper we investigate how the employment relationship, if it implies transfer of rents, may allow employers to control the voting behavior of their workers and lead to strategic registration of voters. This is feasible when individual voting behavior is observable, as in open ballot...