We explore theoretically and empirically whether social interaction, including local and global interaction, influences the incidence of corruption. We first present an interaction-based model on corruption that predicts that the level of corruption is positively associated with social interaction. Then we empirically verify the theoretical prediction using within-country evidence at the provin...

Subsidies and Exports in Germany: First Evidence from Enterprise Panel Data We use newly available representative panel data for manufacturing enterprises in West and East Germany to investigate the link between production-related subsidies and exports. We document that only a small fraction of enterprises is subsidized, and that exports and subsidies are positively related. Using a matching ap...

The authors use a panel data regression model to examine the effects of main monetary policy instruments on commercial bank risks in China from 1998 to 2011. The interest rate has a positive effect on bank risk while the interest rate margin, the reserve requirement ratio and open market operation have a negative effect. Among the three monetary policy instruments, the reserve requirement ratio...

The author presents new evidence on the effects of attendance on academic performance. He used a large panel data set for introductory microeconomics students to explicitly take into account the effect of unobservable factors correlated with attendance, such as ability, effort, and motivation. He found that neither proxy variables nor instrumental variables provide a solution to the omitted var...

The paper explains IMF and World Bank lending and conditionality stressing changes in relative bargaining power of different stakeholders over time. It applies public choice theory to explain the interests of the institutions’ member states, its borrowers and staffs as well as private actors attaching their money to the IFIs’ programs. Using panel data for 43 countries between 1987–99 it is sho...

W examine how initial public offerings (IPOs) and acquisitions affect entrepreneurial innovation as measured by patent counts and forward patent citations. We construct a firm-year panel data set of all venture capital-backed biotechnology firms founded between 1980 and 2000, tracked yearly through 2006. We address the possibility of unobserved self-selection into exit mode by using coarsened e...

We develop a structural consumer lifecycle model to investigate consumers’ adoption and usage decisions of ATM cards in Italy. By estimating a model of consumers’ optimal usage decisions and embedding it into a forward-looking consumer adoption decision model, we can “impute” per period monetary benefits of adopting the financial innovation. This in turn allows us to recover the monetary value ...

Improved governance and lower start-up costs may not be sufficient for encouraging the type of entrepreneurship that matters for economic growth. Using panel data on 60 countries spanning the period 2003-07 this paper establishes that (i) opportunitymotivated entrepreneurship (as opposed to necessity-motivated entrepreneurship) drives economic growth; (ii) governance and the start-up costs are ...

Liquidity constraints are an almost ubiquitous assumption in development economics. Yet the direct evidence for liquidity constraints is limited, and many observations consistent with liquidity constraints are equally compatible with precautionary saving or a lack of forward planning. Using household panel data and a source of widely anticipated income in South Africa, this paper tests and reje...

The imposed commission ban to Finnish insurance intermediaries has generated some controversy and the intermediary market has experienced consolidation in the few last years. The thesis examines the relationship between market structure and profitability among Finnish life insurance intermediaries and tests for the applicability of two market power hypotheses. The panel data analysis shows that...