We investigate how economic inequality can persist in Latin America in the context of radical falls in political inequality in the last decades. Using data from Colombia, we focus on a critical facet of democratization - the entry of new politicians. We show that initial levels of inequality...

This paper proposes a new framework to model institutions and institutional change. It shows how moral agents, who strive to cooperate with others, can form institutions that facilitate cooperation. The framework makes it possible to model informal as well as formal institutions as games played...

D. Acemoğlu, S. Johnson und J. Robinson erhielten 2024 den Nobelpreis für Wirtschaftswissenschaften für ihre Forschung zu den Auswirkungen von Institutionen auf den Wohlstand von Nationen. Sie erweiterten die klassische Wirtschaftstheorie um die institutionelle und politökonomische...

We develop a theory for the optimal interaction between monetary and fiscal policy. While one might initially think that monetary and fiscal policy should pull in the same direction, we show within a simple model that this is not always the case. If there are small costs of changing the interest...

We study how monetary policy should respond to shocks which permanently alter the steady state structure of the economy. In such a case monetary policy affects not only the short run misallocations due to nominal rigidities, but also relative prices which stimulate reallocation of capital. We...

In order to elucidate the revival of religion in the Muslim countries, we must not only understand the spread of puritan interpretations of the faith (as they have permeated movements running from Muslim Brothers to violent Islamist movements), but also comprehend the process whereby these more...

The authors offer a general analytical framework illustrating the complex two-way interactions between trade and transnational terrorism. Then they survey the recent economic literature in light of this framework by pointing to the importance in empirical studies of (1) controlling appropriately...

What is the impact of terrorism on trade through higher security at the borders? The authors set up a theory which shows that the impact goes not only from terrorism to trade. Higher trade with a partner might, in turn, increase the probability of terrorism acts and make security measures more...