This paper examines if an energy price shock should be compensated by a reduction in energy taxes to mitigate its impact on consumer prices. Such an adjustment is often debated and advocated for redistributive reasons. Our investigation is based on a model that characterizes second-best optimal...

Many developing countries are unable to provide their industrial sector with reliable electric power and many enterprises have to contend with insufficient and unreliable electricity supply. Because of these constraints, enterprises often opt for self-generation even though it is widely...

A standard view holds that removing barriers to entry and improving judicial enforcement would reduce informality and boost investment and growth. We show, however, that this conclusion may not hold in countries with a concentrated bank- ing sector or with low financial openness. When the formal...

Standard economic models with complete information predict a positive, monotonic relationship between pay and performance. This prediction does not always hold in experimental tests: offering a small payment may result in lower performance than not offering any pay- ment. We test experimentally...

We study individual ability to memorize and recall information about friendship networks using a combination of experiments and survey-based data. In the experi- ment subjects are shown a network, in which their location is exogenously assigned, and they are then asked questions about the...

The main goal of this study is to demonstrate the existence of a significant empirical link between infrastructure and financial sectors reforms the effects of which are reflected in infrastructure sectors performance. This paper reports on the findings of an exploration of this issue for the...

This paper studies spousal peer effects on the smoking behaviour and their implication for the health of children through passive smoking. Smoking decisions are modeled as equilibrium strategies of an incomplete information game within the couple. Using data from the French Health Survey...