How were contracts among firms enforced in the early phase of a transition economy when firms lacked experience with commercial contracts or legal procedures? What were their views of their new business environment? We interviewed a sample of Bulgarian firms, including private, state-owned and...

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between government size and the unemployment rate using a structural error correction model that describes both the short-run dynamics and long-run determination of the unemployment rate. Using data from twenty OECD countries from 1970 to 1999, we...

Ten years ago, the City of Wilmington, DE was poised to adopt a two tier tax structure, with all the property tax burden focused on land and the tax on building gradually falling to zero. This concept has been used successfully throughout the world, and enormous efficiency gains were projected...

This paper investigates the relationship between capital account openness and growth. Our empirical investigation of the effects of capital restrictions on growth provides evidence supporting capital account liberalization, especially for developed countries. We also show that capital...

Regulation of the cable television industry was marked by remarkable periods of deregulation, re-regulation, and re-deregulation during the 1980s and 1990s. Using FCC firm-level survey data spanning 1993 to 2001, we model and econometrically estimate the effect of regulation and competition on...

In the standard neoclassical model with a representative agent, a benevolent planner who can commit to future policies will, if feasible, levy a single confiscatory tax on capital in the initial period and commit never to set positive taxes thereafter. We show that this policy, which allows for...

The Internet has introduced a variety of online buying services that expand the reach of sellers and reduce search costs for buyers. In markets in which traditional outlets establish prices through bargaining, these online intermediaries have also altered the price setting process. Perhaps the...

Experiences of high-inflation economies suggest that exchange rate-based (ERB) and money-based (MB) disinflations induce sharply different dynamics in consumption and GDP. I study the role of nominal rigidities to explain such dynamics. I build on Calvo pricing to introduce elements of...

Among the benefits that technology can provide is greater connectivity among economic agents. Commerce now occurs across great geographic distances at nominal transaction costs. Technology, therefore, seems to have the potential to unshackle economic agents from their suppliers and customers,...