Cross-country growth regressions have in recent years become a major growth industry. The most common purpose of this work has been to investigate the determinants of economic growth. But it is also possible to use the existing growth data to determine the extent to which policy choices help or...

Corruption is a function of its return relative to engaging in productive activities. This paper presents an approach for thinking about the institutional features of societies and the resulting amount of corruption. The empirical results suggest that political competition is more important than...

Ethnic conflict has not been tested using economic theory, except its most extreme forms - violence and warfare. This paper adopts the newer economic approach to conflict to analyze ethnic conflict more broadly defined. The analysis is able for the first time to derive equilibrium discrimination...

Major League Baseball draws players from many nations. This article tests the predictions of neoclassical and product-lifecycle trade theory against the careers of Major League Baseball players from six foreign countries. Sustained specialization, consistent with neoclassical trade theory, is...

This article tests the efficient-markets hypothesis by looking at profits in National Football League (NFL) betting markets. The author tests whether successful betting strategies exist when points scored and allowed earlier in a season can outperform the betting line in predicting the margin of...

Cross-country growth regressions have become an increasingly common tool in empirical development research. But these regressions typically do not attempt to distinguish among countries in different stages of development. Three empirical methods are used to test for such differences. Several of...

In the U.S. criminal courts must throw out improperly obtained evidence. A key justification for this practice is that it is that it deters law-enforcement misconduct. This paper uses principal-agent theory to suggest that, contrary to economic and other conventional wisdom, if the exclusionary...

Even when efficiency gains can be expected from contracting out municipal services, it surprisingly rarely occurs. Political pressure by interest groups, especially unions, is usually assumed responsible. We argue that the effectiveness of such pressure is actually a function of a service's...