In a model where biased judges can distort contract enforcement, we uncover positive feedback effects between the use of innovative contracts and legal evolution that improve verifiability and contracting over time. We find, however, that the cost of judicial bias also grows over time because...

In a model where biased judges can distort contract enforcement, we uncover positive feedback effects between the use of innovative contracts and legal evolution that improve verifiability and contracting over time. We find, however, that the cost of judicial bias also grows over time because...

We model the different ways in which precedents and contract standardization shape the development of markets and the law. In a setup where more resourceful parties can distort contract enforcement to their advantage, we find that the introduction of a standard contract reduces enforcement...

We model the different ways in which precedents and contract standardization shape the development of markets and the law. In a setup where more resourceful parties can distort contract enforcement to their advantage, we find that the introduction of a standard contract reduces enforcement...

Countries with greater social capital have higher economic growth. We show that social capital is also highly positively correlated across countries with government expenditure on education. We develop an infinite-horizon model of public spending and endogenous stochastic growth that explains...

I provide a justification of intellectual property rights as a source of static efficiency gains in manufacturing, rather than dynamic benefits from greater innovation. I develop a property-rights model of a supply relationship with two dimensions of non-contractible investment. In equilibrium,...

We present a tractable stochastic endogenous growth model that explains how social capital influences economic development. In our model, social capital increases citizens' awareness of government activity. Hence, it alleviates the electoral incentives to under- invest in education, whose...

Why do public-sector workers receive so much of their compensation in the form of pensions and other benefits? This paper presents a political economy model in which politicians compete for taxpayers' ’and government employees' votes by promising compensation packages, but some voters cannot...

This paper analyzes the costs of third-pillar individual pension plans currently available in Italy, namely pension insurance policies and open pension funds, which are new products in the Italian savings market. For lack of data on annuities, the analysis is limited to the accumulation phase....

A well-known result in life-cycle models with uncertain lifetime is that, absent other sources of uncertainty, egoistic agents should annuitize all their wealth. The gain from access to an annuity market, as measured by the increase in non-annuitized wealth required to obtain the same utility...