Why are some leaders able to rally mass support and successfully catalyze revolutionary change while others fail? We argue that the key to understanding a leader’s effectiveness lies in dissecting the symbiotic relationship between the leader and his committed activist-followers. Good leaders...

This paper examines the role of cultural factors in driving the politics, size and nature (tempo- rary versus permanent migration) of migration policy. We show that there exists a broad political failure that results in ine¢ ciently high barriers restricting the import of temporary foreign...

The paper examines the role of policy intervention in engendering institutional change. We show that first order changes in the political structure (e.g. introduction of democracy) may be undermined by local political interests and result in persistence in institutions and the (poor) quality of...

We analyze whether or not the globalization of capital, `disciplines' governments and improves gov- ernance. We demonstrate that globalization a ects governance, by increasing a country's vulnerability to sudden capital ight. This increased threat of capital ight can discipline governments and...

This paper presents two wage series for unskilled English women workers from 1260 to 1850, the first based on daily wages and the second on the remuneration per day implied in annual service contracts. These two series are compared and the series for women’s daily wages is also compared with...

We investigate whether and how the type of unemployment benefit institution affects productivity. We designed a field experiment to compare workers' productivity under a welfare system, where the unemployed receive an unconditional monetary transfer, with their productivity under a workfare...

We examine why heterogenous communities may fail to provide public goods. Current work characterizes sanctioning free-riders as an under-supplied public good. We argue that often free-riders can be punished by the coordinated action of a group. This punishment can be profitable, and need not be...

This paper provides a survey of the implications of post-war European economic integration for trade and income. A particular focus is the impact on the United Kingdom. The literature clearly points to large effects of the EU on trade but is more ambivalent about EFT A. Conventional econometric...

There are at least two distinct (but related) concepts of ‘secular stagnation’. One concerns a possible long-run term trend growth failure and the other a permanent liquidity trap. In the context of poor productivity performance, both are legitimate fears for European economies although...

We measure the consequences of asymmetric information and imperfect competition in the Italian lending market. We show that banks’ optimal price response to an increase in adverse selection varies with competition. Exploiting matched data on loans and defaults, we estimate models of demand for...