This paper examines whether the current political arrangements framing the Mexican politics help in consolidating and advancing those economic reforms that have been implemented in Mexico since the 1982 severe economic crises. I will argue that these arrangements create impediments to the...

The world has been struck by a mutating systemic financial crisis that is unprecedented in terms of financial losses and fiscal costs, geographic reach, and speed and synchronisation. The crisis from August 2007 to date can be divided into three main phases: the financial turmoil from August...

Psychologische Studien belegen vielfältige Abweichungen menschlicher Denk- und Verhaltensweisen von den üblichen Rationalitätsannahmen ökonomischer Modelle. Die traditionelle Ökonomie begegnet diesen Hinweisen begrenzter Rationalität mit Zurückhaltung, auch wenn derartige Ansätze...

Most of the major policy reforms being considered result in winners and losers. It would be nice if this were not so, and one could devise reforms that were "win-win" propositions when one digs beneath the public rhetoric. Unfortunately, life does not often present reforms that meet the Pareto...

In this paper we look at the impact of broad policy reforms on the levels of corruption. We use a structural break approach to identify country specific time periods in which significant shifts in corruption levels take place. We then correlate these times of change with a set of co-variates...

This paper analyzes the effective regulation of commercial lobbying activities and focuses on the endogenous choice of regulatory institutions. The analysis uses a model of commercial lobbying in which citizens hire lobbyists to present policy matters on their behalf, and policymakers announce...

We develop a two-period model of redistributive politics in which two politicians compete in an election in each period. In the first period, the politicians propose both whether to experiment with an efficient reform with uncertain benefits and choose the amount of public debt. Politicians also...

There is a strong presumption among economists that domestic reforms are promoted by regionalism. Yet strong empirical evidence for this proposition is lacking. This paper examines both the theoretical arguments and empirical evidence on this issue, drawing on the relevant economic, political,...