This Paper argues that a geographical perspective is fundamental to understanding comparative economic development in the context of globalization. Central to this view is the role of agglomeration in productivity performance; size and location matter. The tools of the new economic geography are...

All Courts rule ex-post, after most economic decisions are sunk. This might generate a time-inconsistency problem. From an ex-ante perspective, Courts will have the (ex-post) temptation to be excessively lenient. This observation is at the root of the principle of stare decisis. Stare decisis...

In this paper, we present a citizen-candidate model of representative democracy with endogenous lobbying. We find that lobbying induces policy compromise and always affects equilibrium policy outcomes. In particular, even though the policy preferences of lobbies are relatively extreme, lobbying...

We find an economic rationale for the common sense answer to the question in our title - courts should not always enforce what the contracting parties write. We describe and analyse a contractual environment that allows a role for an active court. An active court can improve on the outcome that...

In a Case Law regime Courts have more flexibility than in a Statute Law regime. Since Statutes are inevitably incomplete, this confers an advantage to the Statute Law regime over the Case Law one. However, all Courts rule ex-post, after most economic decisions are already taken. Therefore, the...

We study a contracting model with unforeseen contingencies in which the court is an active player. Ex-ante, the contracting parties cannot include the risky unforeseen contingencies in the contract they draw up. Ex-post the court observes whether an unforeseen contingency occurred, and decides...

The response of an economy to a windfall of foreign exchange (be it aid or natural resource revenues) is often constrained by absorptive capacity. We provide a micro-founded analysis of absorption constraints, based on the idea that expanding the economy’s capital stock (in aggregate or...

How are the benefits - and costs - of a customs union divided between member countries? Outcomes depend on the comparative advantage of member countries, relative to each other and to the rest of the world. Countries with a comparative advantage between that of their partners and the rest of the...

This paper considers the locational choice of firms in an upstream and a downstream industry. Both industries are imperfectly competitive, with firms subject to increasing returns. There are transport costs between the two locations. Depending on the level of these costs there may be a single...

This Paper uses bilateral trade data for OECD countries at the 3-digit industry level to investigate the geography of intra-industry trade (IIT). IIT diminishes with distance and much of the existing empirical literature suggests that this is an inherent characteristic of such trade, arguing...