This paper studies how to protect future generations from expropriation and to induce optimal investment in intergenerational public goods (IPGs), by introducing constitutional restrictions on the tax base. The type of tax-base restrictions that we consider places limits on the tax instruments that the government can use to raise revenue, but not on the level of expenditures or debt. We show th...

We develop a standard model to show how transaction costs in international investment affect conventional tests of consumption risk sharing, both in a multilateral and a bilateral setting. We implement the tests in a novel international dataset on bilateral holdings of equity, bonds, foreign direct investment and bank loans. International consumption risk sharing increases with foreign capital ...

Institutions determine prospects for economic growth and development. This paper collapses potentially complex interactions of different institutions into a simple condition on the primitives that determines whether a society supports spot markets or not. In a dynamic model of an agrarian economy agents are heterogeneous in land holdings, skill, and food endowments. Food holdings serve as a pro...

Article history: Received 25 April 2012 Received in revised form 29 August 2013 Accepted 5 September 2013 Available online 13 September 2013 This paper examines the relation between business group affiliation and the cost of debt capital. The co-insurance effect associated with business groups can reduce the cost of debt, while expropriation by controlling shareholders can raise the cost of deb...

the present article deals with the issues of nationalization and expropriation in the light of iran-united states claims tribunal awards by looking at their legality and the limits on the rights of states to nationalise and expropriate, while discussing some case law. i will argue that the state’s right to nationalize foreign property is an attribute of its sovereignty and derives from territor...

Government intervention in land transactions is common in developing countries, especially where land markets function poorly. This is the case in Ethiopia, where expropriation of farmland from small-scale farmers has been used by all levels of government as a tool for providing new land for industrial investors, commercial agriculture and expanding cities. This paper evaluates the impact of su...

This paper studies the interplay of capital resources in a small open economy by way of a general equilibrium political economy model. Normative implications for human capital migration resulting from physical capital lobbying are analyzed. Findings reveal that lobbying designed to mitigate the capital levy problem leads to increased human capital migration and that optimal tax policy for a soc...