The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is the foremost international body responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. Members vote on issues of global importance and consequently receive perks – election to the UNSC predicts, for instance, World Bank and IMF loans....

We develop a theoretical framework for equity in council voting games (CVGs). In a CVG, a fully representative voting body delegates decision-making to a subset of the members, as describes, e.g., the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Three equity concepts are proposed, ex-ante...

We present a theoretical model postulating that the relationship between crime and governance is "hump-shaped" rather than linearly decreasing. State failure, anarchy and a lack of infrastructure are not conducive for the establishment of any business. This includes illegal businesses, as...

We study a model of political competition between two candidates with two orthogonal issues, where candidates are office motivated and committed to a particular position in one of the dimensions, while having the freedom to slect (credibly) any position on the other dimension. We analyse two...

If fertility reflects the choice of households, results of their choice (duration between successive births and health of the children) cannot be considered to be randomly determined. While most existing studies of child health tend to overlook the effects of fertility selection on child health,...

Using data for 1995, 1997 and 2001 and a sophisticated selectivity correction econometric methodology, this paper explores human capital allocation and returns in four labor market sectors in Bulgaria. Our results indicate that while in the aftermath of structural reform highly productive...

Recent Eurobarometer survey data are used to document and explain the stock of social capital in 28 European countries. Social capital in Central and Eastern Europe – measured by civic participation and access to social networks – lags behind that in Western European countries. Using...

In the absence of any official measures of old age poverty, this paper uses National Sample Survey household-level data to investigate the extent and nature of living standards and incidence of poverty among elderly in sixteen major states in India. We construct both individual and...

Wealthy individuals often voluntarily provide public goods that the poor also consume. Such philanthropy is commonly perceived as legitimizing one’s wealth. Governments routinely exempt the rich from taxation on grounds of their charitable expenditures. We examine the logic of this exemption....

We examine the determinants of a current migrant's location choice emphasizing the relative importance and interaction of migrant stocks and flows. We show that both stocks and flow have significant impacts on the migrant’s decision of where to locate. The significance and size of the effects...