Do institutions and culture affect environmental values? In this article we analyze 1,041 environmental valuations of 223 wetlands in 38 developing countries, to examine the effect of institutions and culture on environmental values. We assess three dimensions of institutional quality: economic...

Institutions are now widely believed to be important in explaining performance. In this paper, we analyze whether commonly used measures of institutions have any significant, measurable impact on performance, whether of countries or firms. We look at three 'levels' of institutions and associated...

Although the theoretical literature often uses lobbying and corruption synonymously, the empirical literature associates lobbying with the preferred mean for exerting influence in developed countries and corruption with the preferred one in developing countries. This paper challenges these...

We analyze the role of risk-sharing institutions in transitions to modern economies. Transitions requires individual-level risk-taking in pursuing productivity-enhancing activities including using and developing new knowledge. Individual-level, idiosyncratic risk implies that distinct...

We investigate emigrant self-selection according to institutional quality using up to 3,566 observations on bilateral migration flows from 77 countries over the 1990-2000 period. We relate these flows to differences in political and economic institutions. We improve and expand upon previous...

A growing body of empirical work measuring different types of cultural traits has shown that culture matters for a variety of economic outcomes. This paper focuses on one specific aspect of the relevance of culture: its relationship to institutions. We review work with a theoretical, empirical,...

Using microdata for 35 countries over the period 1985-1994-2002 we find that labor market institutions traditionally associated to more compressed wage structures are associated to a higher family gap. Our results indicate that these policies reduce the price effect of having children but...

There is considerable debate regarding the relative contribution of international migrants' remittances to sustainable economic development. While the rates and levels of officially recorded remittances to developing countries has increased enormously over the last decade, academic and...

In this paper, we formulate a dynamic utility maximization model of female labor force participation and fertility choices and estimate approximate decision rules using data on married women in Italy, Spain and France. The pattern of estimated state dependence effects across countries is...

The Cold War division of Korea, regarded as a natural experiment in institutional change, provides a unique opportunity to examine whether institutions affect social preferences. We recruited North Korean refugees and South Korean students to conduct laboratory experiments eliciting social...