Banerjee and Iyer find that districts which the British assigned to landlord revenue systems systematically underperform districts with non-landlord based revenue systems in agricultural performance, after the onset of the Green Revolution in the mid-1960s. Based on colonial documents, archival...

Economists have focused on job search and supply-side explanations for network effects in labour transactions. This paper develops and tests an alternative explanation for the high prevalence of network-based labour market entry in developing countries. In our theoretical framework, employers...

Exploring the politics of inclusive development : towards a new conceptual approach / Sam Hickey, Kunal Sen, and Badru Bukenya -- The political determinants of economic growth : an analytical review / Kunal Sen -- The politics of what works for the poor in public expenditure and taxation / Paul...

Although rational choice theory presumes people have a point estimate of their willingness to pay (WTP) for a good or service, the idea of coherent arbitrariness suggests they have an interval of values. Herein we explore bidding behavior in a second-price auction in which bidders have point or...

We consider how the reputation of being socially responsible works as an effective source of motivation in protecting a public good, such as endangered species. This paper investigates the mechanism design for endangered species protection on private land under asymmetric information about...

This paper examines how preferences for social reputation affect the design of monetary incentives in an efficient mechanism for environmental risk. Our results are a high reputation firm receives less than optimal transfer; the low reputation firm sacrifices information rent.