Some committees convene behind closed doors while others publicly discuss issues and make their decisions. This paper studies the role of open and closed committee decision making in presence of external influence. We show that restricting the information of interest groups may reduce the bias...

The reaction of exports to real exchange rate movements can differ according to the nature of the destination country. We derive and estimate a gravity equation for 20 OECD exporting countries and 52 developed and developing importing countries. We test how trade costs dampen the effect of real...

We investigate the role of corruption in the business environment in explaining the efficiency of within-sector production factor allocation across firms in nine Central and Eastern European countries in the period 2003-2012. Using a conditional convergence model, we find evidence of a positive...

Which incentives have the strongest impact on the size of the shadow economy? Is it about government's pressure against entrepreneurs operating in this sector, or is it about the benefits of legality? The goal of this paper is to explicitly contrast the role of sticks (court repressiveness) and...

This analysis investigates a political corruption model that builds on previous literature on corruption in hierarchies. Our study enriches the literature on political corruption emphasizing the contrasting role of the minorities having a control role of the majorities. In particular, this paper...

This paper considers electoral behavior and institutional capture when voters choose between a populist and non-populist politician. Populist politicians provide voters with a utility boom followed by a subsequent bust, as in Dornbusch and Edwards (The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin...

We conduct experimental games with police applicants in Germany to investigate whether intrinsically motivated agents self-select into public service. Our focus is on trustworthiness and the willingness to enforce norms as key dimensions of intrinsic motivation in the police context. We find...

Cross-national empirical studies of corruption commonly find that nations in which women play a greater role in economic and public life suffer less corruption. This finding has been controversial in that measures of women's participation in the labour force and politics are potentially...

Whistle-blowing by employees plays a major role in uncovering corporate fraud. Various recent laws aim at improving protection of whistle-blowers and enhancing their willingness to report. Evidence on the effectiveness of such legislation is, however, scarce. Moreover, critics have raised...

In our framed laboratory experiment, two Public Officials, A and B, make consecutive decisions regarding embezzlement from separate funds. Official B observes Official A's decision before making their own. There are four treatments: three with deterrence and one without. We find a peer effect in...