Declining general trust has become a serious social issue in China in recent years. This paper attempts to understand and analyze this social phenomenon from a social interaction perspective. Based on a repeated prisoners ́dilemma game on networks, it finds that the evolution of general trust...

Facilitating legislation is required for citizens to initiate local referendums to adopt urban property rights that provide sustainable affordable housing and infrastructure. New laws and regulations are required so official currencies do not: (a) create inefficiencies and climate change from...

This paper studies the long-term consequences of communism on present-day freedom of expression values in two settings - East Germany and the states linked to the sphere of influence of the former USSR. Exploiting the natural experiment of German separation and later reunification, we show that...

The increasing gap between the formerly socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CE & EE) with regard to both their economic and political performance cannot be explained by their different starting conditions after the breakdown of the Soviet Union alone. Rather, it is due to cultural...

The institutions improvement is one of principal conditions for the transitional and developing economies growth. This study on the bases of multidisciplinary approach investigates the necessity of using the concept “institutional uncertainty” in economic and social researching, proves that...

The institutions improvement is one of principal conditions for the transitional and developing economies growth. This study on the bases of multidisciplinary approach investigates the necessity of using the concept “institutional uncertainty” in economic and social researching, proves that...

The institutions improvement is one of principal conditions for the transitional and developing economies growth. This study on the bases of multidisciplinary approach investigates the necessity of using the concept “institutional uncertainty” in economic and social researching, proves that...

This paper explores the problem of credible commitment that public officials face with regard to institutional reform. Doug North points out that while economies grow as a result of the provision of governance, I argue that creating an entity with a geographic monopoly simultaneously limits the...

This paper examines the relationship between differences in civil society development under communism and the political, economic and institutional change and transformation after 1989. We collected a unique dataset on nature and intensity of dissident activities in 27 former communist countries...

The paper explores a phenomenon often observed in transition economies, when newly established institutions are misused, i.e., applied or resorted to for reasons which have little in common with their intended or anticipated purpose. In such incidences institutions become sources of private...