The system GMM estimator for dynamic panel data models combines moment conditions for the model in first differences with moment conditions for the model in levels. It has been shown to improve on the GMM estimator in the first differenced model in terms of bias and root mean squared error....

A political regime has budgetary separation of powers if the power with the prerogative to raise taxes is not the full residual claimant of a tax increase. In the American states two conditions are needed: the governor must have the line item veto, and the political interests of the legislative...

Data from a range of different environments indicate that the incidence of death is not randomly distributed across families but, rather, that there is a clustering of death amongst siblings. A natural explanation of this would be that there are (observed or unobserved) differences across...

The Vote Production Function (VPF) has a party's vote depending on (a) its potential vote and (b) the party organization which actualizes it - 'political capital'. Empirical work suggests that moving to the centre would increase your vote if only you could hold political capital constant. The...

We consider a principal-agent model of adverse selection where, in order to trade with the principal, the agent must undertake a relationship-specific investment which affects his outside option to trade, i.e. the payoff that he can obtain by trading with an alternative principal. This creates a...

We provide a joint account of the unemployment and labor force participation patterns of older male workers during the past half-century, and of the role of institutions that have shaped their employment experience. To do so, we build an equilibrium model with labor market frictions,...

It is sometimes argued that foreign aid leads to a virtuous circle in which growth becomes self-reinforcing. We study two versions of this argument, using a modified neoclassical growth model in which the effects of parameter changes and capital accumulation are amplified. Simulations are used...

In the US labor market the average black worker is exposed to a lower employment rate and earns a lower wage compared to his white counterpart. Lang and Lehmann (2012) argue that these mean differences mask substantial heterogeneity along the distribution of workers’ skill. In particular, they...