We find that new states are perceived to be more corrupt even though businesses do not report more bribery in newer states. This is suggestive of an unearned, and likely high, reputational cost to being a new state. These findings hold over a number of specifications that include additional...

We study the effects of different types of technological diversification on the performance of regional economies. We focus on the relatedness and unconventionality of technological capabilities as drivers of GDP and employment growth. Using economic indicators from Eurostat regional statistics...

We analyse policy makers' incentives to fight corruption under different institutional qualities. We find that 'public officials', even when non-corrupt, significantly distort anti-corruption institutions by choosing a lower detection probability when this probability applies to their own...

Recent years have seen a significant focus in the literature on growth and development on the idea that legal and political institutions are the key determinant of economic development. The main finding of this paper is that the focus on the primacy of legal and political institutions may be...

We analyze the effects of corruption and institutional quality on the quality of business regulation. Our key findings indicate that corruption negatively affects the quality of regulation and that general institutional quality is insignificant once corruption is controlled for. These findings...