Previously reported effects of institutional quality and political risks on foreign direct investment (FDI) are mixed and, therefore, difficult to interpret. We present empirical evidence suggesting a relatively clear, statistically robust, and intuitive characterization. Institutional factors...

The authors reexamine the Schmalensee effect from a dynamic perspective. Schmalsensee's argument suggesting that high quality can be signaled by high prices is based on the assumption that higher quality necessarily incurs higher production cost. In this paper, the authors argue that firms...

This paper provides insights into the apparent seesaw between the generation of theoretical versus empirical economics research over time. A dynamic model considers the incentives of researchers to focus on empirical versus theoretical papers. It yields the main characteristics of the...

The Solow condition is examined in an intertemporal model that blends the shirking and the turnover models of efficiency wages with managerial supervision. It is shown that the Solow condition does not hold when shirking and turnover costs are considered. The Solow condition can be a possible...

Using the political-economic history of the development of telephony during the 1870s as a backdrop, this paper studies a two-player Tullock contest that includes both research effort (R&D) and legal effort (i.e., rent-seeking effort). The two types of efforts complement each other and...

We derive the Green Golden Rule (GGR) in the Habit Formation (HF) and Anticipation of Future Consumption (AFC) frameworks. Since consumption is the key variable of GGR, time non-separabilities in preferences over consumption streams, given by the AFC and HF, may have important impacts on the...

We confront five stylized facts related to sovereign default: 1) the presence of serial defaulters; 2) the prevalence of partial over complete default; 3) the counter-cyclicality of default; 4) non-linearity of sovereign spreads; and 5) heterogeneous outcomes among serial defaulters. In a model...

This paper studies a three player hierarchical differential game (with a large country, a small country, and a terrorist organization), to analyze the actual European refugee situation. Terrorists may enter Europe as refugees, taking advantage of the Open Door Policy, to attack both countries....

This paper derives a dynamic path of ongoing terror attacks as a function of terrorists' capacity and a target government's counterterror capacity. The analysis provides several novel insights and characterizations. First, the effect of counterterror policy is limited. Second, proactive...