This paper adds to the literature of informal firms-corruption relationship by undertaking a firm level study for India and asking if economic freedom helps the transition from informal to formal by mitigating perceived corruption by firms. Given economic institutions that encompass property...

Available wisdom suggests that a negative relationship prevails between economic freedom and perceived corruption among firms. However, the relationship is far from linear and a number of complex interactions make it fairly nuanced. We show that greater competition may accentuate the problem of...

The ambiguity in the relationship between self-employment and educational attainment is well documented in the literature. Using an extensive individual level dataset from Periodic Labor Force Survey, we estimate the probability of being self-employed in India based on educational attainments....

In an emerging literature, informal institutions or culture has been defined based on four important traits - TRUST, RESPECT, CONTROL and OBEDIENCE. This paper investigates the question - do informal institutions, defined by these traits, enhance women's political, social and economic rights? A...

Purpose – During recent times, the stock market has emerged as a major financial institution of an economy. Yet, cross-country differences, in size and role of stock market, persist. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the correlation between cultural traits and the development of the...

The article explores the role of the political regime on asset returns in an International Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) framework based on a sample of 17 emerging countries. The results reveal that the political regime has substantial impact on average stock returns. Firms in autocratic...