This paper deals with the question how to locate generally beneficial, but locally harmful facilities in accordance with citizens' procedural preferences. The analysis of survey data collected among people potentially affected by such siting decisions shows that aspects of procedural fairness...

This article analyzes the reasons why individuals oppose the siting of nuclear waste repositories close to their hometowns. In a simple model based on survey data, we show that the willingness to accept such facilities largely depends on economic criteria, namely expected economic impacts and...

This study examines the financing choices of firms operating in a weak institutional environment. We argue that in relationship-based systems, global financing and political connections are substitutes: Well-connected firms are less likely to access foreign capital markets because (state-owned)...

The price system is generally thought to be the epitome of efficiency. In some cases, however, lotteries are preferred to the market as a social decision-making system for reasons of fairness. As recent research has shown, neither procedure is always well accepted among the general population....

It is often difficult for donors to predict the value of charitable giving because they know little about their recipients. This concern is particularly acute when making contributions to organizations that serve heterogeneous populations. Prior research shows that donors are more generous if...

We examine the diversification patterns of almost all publicly listed non-financial companies in China during the 2001 to 2005 period. More than 70 percent of the firms in our sample are diversified. We document that patterns of diversification strongly depend on firms' political connections....

Local opposition to many projects makes it increasingly difficult to find sites for socially desirable facilities. As has been widely documented, compensation for local disamenities does not increase the level of support. An empirical analysis of the Swiss search for a nuclear waste repository...

We test the robustness of behavior in dictator games by offering allocators the choice to play an unattractive lottery. With this lottery option, mean transfers from allocators to recipients substantially decline, partly because many allocators now keep the entire endowment for themselves...

The economic theory of federalism is largely built around the premise that more heterogeneous preferences result in more decentralized policy making. Despite its prominence and importance, this central tenet of economic federalism has never been empirically evaluated. This paper presents the...