Soft bankruptcy allows a poor performing entrepreneur to renegotiate the terms of outstanding financial contracts, but at the same time it allows lenders to increase recovery rates. Hinging on this basic trade-off, the first Chapter of this thesis shows that a soft bankruptcy law designed as...

The difficulties and obstacles faced by the poorer nations of the global economy on the path to development are extremely diverse. It is the aim of this thesis to address some of the interesting questions related to the key obstacles. As such, this thesis is neither wholly empirical or...

Natural resources represent a good opportunity for economic growth and development in many resource-rich countries. However, not all these countries have benefited from the wealth stemming from natural resources. The empirical evidence shows that the economic performance of many resource-rich...

Countries are increasingly linked internationally. The three models developed in this thesis shed light on how firms and governments respond to the increasing interconnectedness of the world economy, analyzing profit taxation, trade finance and government intervention in the event of a...

This thesis addresses the problem of how to identify and model sources of common fluctuations of economic variables. It is an interesting question not only for researchers but also for policy makers and other authorities. The literature presents two approaches. The first one is based on an...

What is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and how can we explain the phenomenon from an economic perspective? Is there a business case for CSR and was Milton Friedman right when writing in the New York Times in 1970 that "the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits"?...

The labor market is central to many issues in economics, including business cycles, unemployment, inequality, education, and growth. Moreover, it is the largest single market in most economies and it is fundamental in determining individual and household well-being. Therefore, a good...

Individuals living in developing economies are subject to a wide variety of risks. Moreover, since private and public formal institutions designed to help individuals coping with risks tend to be weaker and narrower than in rich countries, these risks very often bear a heavy burden on welfare....

Recently, there has been strong interest among economists in the impact of social and cultural factors on economic outcomes. For instance, concepts like culture, social capital or social attitudes have been used to explain several individual and group outcomes such as labor supply, health,...

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