Beginning in December 2004 Google has pursued a new project to create a book search engine (Google Book Search). The project has released a storm of controversy around the globe. While the supporters of Google Book Search conceive the project as a first reasonable step towards unlimited access...

We study the hybrid open access (HOA) citation effect. Under HOA Pilot agreements, HOA is assigned for all articles of eligible authors. We use unique data on 208 (1,121) HOA (closed access) economics articles. We control for the quality of journals, articles and institutions and citations to...

In a recent paper, Prof. Steven Shavell (see Shavell, 2009) has argued strongly in favor of eliminating copyright from academic works. Based upon solid economic arguments, Shavell analyses the pros and cons of removal of copyright and in its place to have a pure open access system, in which...

Intrinsically trustworthy agents never cheat. A society's willingness to trust and the quality of its institutions have their origins in the intrinsic trustworthiness of its citizens. Trustworthiness is the basis for maximizing output in economic exchange and in explaining differences in...

The instrumental variables strategy is commonly employed in empirical research. For correct inference using this econometric technique, the instruments must be perfectly exogenous and relevant. In fact, the standard t-ratio test statistic used in this context yields unreliable and often...

This paper introduces endogenous capital income tax rates as in Schmitt-Grohe and Uribe (1997), into the overlapping generations model with endogenous labor and consumption in both periods of life (e.g., Cazzavillan and Pintus, 2004). In contrast with the previous result that the existence of...

Israel’s policies regarding Lebanon have been dependent on public opinion, which is very volatile. The citizens of Israel did not favor the occupation of the security zone in South Lebanon because of the Four Mothers movement, and it influenced the government to withdraw military forces...

This research attempts a theoretical and quantitative analysis of authoritarian regimes enduring in the developing countries. We attempt computer visualization of the model developed by Acemoglu and Robinson in order to derive an empirical hypothesis easily. There is a reason for us to accept...

This document presents a Macroeconomic Consistency Model for a dollarized economy such as Ecuador. Based on a simply accounting framework that combined the social accounting matrix with the flow of funds, we integrate the different sectors of the economics through a matrix of income,...

Episodes of market crashes have fascinated economists for centuries. Although many academics, practitioners and policy makers have studied questions related to collapsing asset price bubbles, there is little consensus yet about their causes and effects. This review and essay evaluates some of...