This paper develops a political economy framework that determines the factors causing underinvestment in public research expenditures. Governments are unable to fully compensate for unequal income distribution effects of research because of either their inability to make credible commitments or...

Sustainability standards for biofuel production calculated via life cycle accounting (LCA) require a certain reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to gasoline. Recently it has been shown that LCA gives biased results and should be extended to incorporate indirect land use change...

Over the past decade, the repressive legal and regulatory environment in transition economies has received considerable attention in the literature. In Russia, this framework has resulted in an environment in which rules and regulations govern almost all aspects of economic activity. The...

We develop a framework where economic agents choose between becoming productive entrepreneurs or re-distributive rent seekers. Rent seekers use economic resources to extract rents and thus their existence generates an inefficient economic outcome. We study the welfare impact of rent seeking...

This paper is concerned with welfare effects of self-regulation. It considers one group of heterogeneous producers modelling incentives they face when collectively deciding about production and trade of a commodity and employing a technology that take into account the trade-off between quality...

In this paper, we investigate factors affecting total household consumption and poverty in Uganda using household survey data. Our analysis indicates that household wellbeing can be improved by expanding education at all levels (primary, secondary, and university), expanding formal employment,...

Replaced with revised version of paper 12/15/05.

This paper studies the links between private politics, environmental performance of firms and regulatory activity by the government. Following the terminology coined by Baron (2001), "private politics" refers to the individual or collective actions initiated by public interest and activist...