An optimal decision model is developed to explore the impact of the structure of knowledge on specialization and cooperation in research. It shows that, (1) the degree of specialization in knowledge increases with the depth of knowledge and cooperation efficiency, and decreases with the average number of disciplines that are required for the solution of the problem; (2) the problem which requir...

Liberal economists have developed a framework of good governance as market-enhancing governance, focusing on governance capabilities that reduce transaction costs and enable markets to work more efficiently. In contrast, heterodox economists have stressed the role of growth-enhancing governance, which focuses on governance capacities to overcome entrenched market failures in allocating assets, ...

A commonly alleged pitfall of decentralization is that poverty, socio-economic inequality and lack of political competition allow local elites to capture local governments. This hypothesis is empirically examined using a longitudinal sample of 89 West Bengal villages concerning targeting of credit, agricultural input kits, employment programs and fiscal grants spanning the period 1978–98. Highe...

Considerable attention has been given to the efficiency-equity dilemma in explaining the territorial allocation of investment. However, centralization policies that seek to introduce or reinforce territorial hierarchies have yet to be subject to empirical analysis. Drawing on data from Spain, we show that investment in network modes is influenced by strategies of directing funding to the region...

The distinct characteristic in James Buchanan’s thinking about federalism in contrast to the traditional theory of fiscal federalism is his view about fiscal competition. In this paper, it is demonstrated that this thinking went through three stages. From the 1950s to the beginning of the 1970s, his analyses were well embedded in the traditional fiscal federalism literature and concerned with e...

The work of William Hutt is well known in the fields of labor economics, monetary economics and political economy. A hundred years after his birth it is appropriate to take note of a less well known work of his, The Economics of the Color Bar. This book, first published in 1964, is an in-depth examination of the origins and implications of apartheid in South Africa his adopted country of reside...

We consider one-to-one, one-sided matching (roommate) problems in which agents can either be matched as pairs or remain single. We introduce a so-called bi-choice graph for each pair of stable matchings and characterize its structure. Exploiting this structure we obtain as a corollary the “lone wolf” theorem and a decomposability result. The latter result together with transitivity of blocking ...

The Political Economy of Social Exclusion with Implications for Immigration Policy Minorities, such as ethnic and immigration groups, have often been subject to exclusion through labor market discrimination, residential and employment segregation policies, business ownership regulations, restrictions on political participation, access to public services and more. This paper studies the dynamics...

On the Post-Unification Development of Public and Private Pay in Germany German post-unification in the 1990s is a period that was marked by substantial economic change, part of which was East German wages building towards the much higher West German levels. This paper studies the public-private pay gap in the fast changing economic and political environment of the 1990s using panel estimation ...

This paper proposes that Colonialism is a major explanation behind today’s differences in Income Inequality among countries. We argue that colonies that received an important number of European settlers were characterized by a concentration of economic and political power in the hands of these last ones. Moreover, European settlers later achieved independence from the metropolis and were able t...