There has been relatively little investigation of the relationship between constitutional transformations and the economic transition in post-communist countries. We develop a simple signaling model in which constitutionalism - a commitment to limit political power and provide judicial defense...

One of the enduring puzzles in transition economies is why incumbent politicians postpone reforms aimed at hardening budget constraints towards unproductive firms. We submit that voters prefer politicians capable of implementing reforms that promote job creation rather than policies that simply...

To avoid strikes and curb labour militancy, some governments have introduced legislation stating that union leadership as well as wage offers should be decided through union-wide ballots. This paper shows that members still have incentives to appoint militant union leaders, if these leaders have...

This paper presents a model of the influence of politicians on the voting outcome in a referendum on regional independence. Regional politicians influence the electorates vote by disseminating information about the economic consequences of separation. More independent minded politicians...

Do democracies suffer higher inflation than non-democracies? We identify two competing hypotheses regarding the impact of democracy on inflation. In the "populist" approach, inflation is the result of public demands for transfers financed by the inflation tax, suggesting that electoral...

We test the hypothesis that aid recipient governments are better able to utilize aid flows for political favoritism during periods in which they are of geo-strategic value to major donors. We examine the effect of a country's (non-permanent) membership on the United Nations Security Council...

In this paper we look at the impact of broad policy reforms on the levels of corruption. We use a structural break approach to identify country specific time periods in which significant shifts in corruption levels take place. We then correlate these times of change with a set of co-variates...