This paper (a) provides a framework for quantifying any economy’s flexibility, and (b) reviews the evidence on New Zealand firms’ birth, growth and death. The data indicate that, by and large, the labour market and the financial market are doing their job.

Trading relations in Vietnam's emerging private sector are shaped by two market frictions: the difficulty of locating trading partners and the absence of legal enforcement of contracts. Examining relational contracting, we find that a firm trusts its customer enough to offer credit when the...

Analyzing a variety of cross-national and sub-national data, we argue that high adult mortality reduces economic growth by shortening time horizons. Higher adult mortality is associated with increased levels of risky behaviour, higher fertility, and lower investment in physical and human...

Recent reforms of Chinese state-owned enterprises strengthened a nascent managerial labor market by incorporating incentives suggestive of competitive Western labor markets. Poorly performing firms were more likely to have a new manager selected by auction, to be required to post a higher...

This paper presents a search model in which consumers repeatedly purchase some good. The repetition of purchases leads to the formatio n of implicit contracts with sellers that generate a kink in the demand curve facing each seller. These kinks can generate equilibrium price dispersion under...

Vietnam's firms contract without the shadow of the law and only partly in the shadow of the future. Although contracting rests in part on the threat of loss of future business, firms often are willing to renegotiate following a breach, so the retaliation is not as forceful as in the standard...