This paper presents a cross country empirical investigation of impacts of skilled labor emigration on sending country’s institutional development. Based on Albert Hirschman’s “Exit and Voice” model, we analyze different channels through which emigration can affect institutions; using Djankov et al.’s “Institutional Possibility Frontier” framework, we assess emigration’s heterogeneous effects on...

We investigate experimentally whether the protégés’ reaction to paternalism depends on the consequences of the paternalistic action to their well-being. We find that protégés punish a paternalist restricting their freedom of choice. Yet, this negative reaction is not based on principled grounds because, with hindsight, protégés punish the paternalist only if the restriction makes them worse off...

We study the determinants of international migration with special attention to the role of institutional factors other than economic and demographic fundamentals. We evaluate the impact of political institutions and of those institutions specifically targeted at attracting migrants. For a dataset on 19th century migration, we find that economic and demographic differentials play a major role, b...

Institutions matter both for long-term economic evolution as well as for more short-termed economic performance. The law is particularly important in shaping the institutional framework for economic activities. This paper gives an overview of typical evolutionary explanations of legal change, i.e. the generation and dissemination of legal innovations over time. The main actors, the key determin...

This article investigates the economic effects of con ict, using the terrorist con ict in the Basque Country as a case study. We Žnd that, after the outbreak of terrorism in the late 1960’s, per capita GDP in the Basque Country declined about 10 percentage points relative to a synthetic control region without terrorism. In addition, we use the 1998–1999 truce as a natural experiment. We Žnd t...

This paper uses a microlevel data set from 49 countries to create a direct measure of corruption, which portrays the extent of bribery as revealed by individuals who live in those countries. In addition, it investigates the determinants of being asked for a bribe at the individual level. The results show that both personal and country characteristics determine the risk of exposure to bribery. E...

A class of voting procedures based on repeated ballots and elimination of one candidate in each round is shown to always induce an outcome in the top cycle and is thus Condorcet consistent, when voters behave strategically. This is an important class as it covers multi-stage, sequential elimination extensions of all standard one-shot voting rules (with the exception of negative voting), the sam...

Capital flight often amounts to a substantial proportion of GDP in developing countries. This paper presents a portfolio choice model that relates capital flight to return differentials, risk aversion, and three types of risk: economic risk, political instability, and policy variability. Estimating the equilibrium capital flight equation for a panel of 45 developing countries over 16 years, all...

This paper advances that the share of European descendants in the population is a major determinant of democracy in former colonial countries. We test this hypothesis using cross-section and panel regressions with 60 developing and developed countries that were once colonies. We …nd that the share of European descendants can explain more than half of the di¤erence in measures of democracy betwe...